PLOT EXPOSED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 133, 7 June 1937, Page 5

PLOT EXPOSED.

ESPIONAGE SERVICE; , \ ( ARMS SMUGGLING RING. SECRET RADIO STATION. i (From Our Own Correspondent.) 1 JAFFA (Palestine), May 5. An amazing story of a secret radio i Station, death in an orange grove, vanishing witnesses and secret societies led police to conclude they had unearthed an international syndicate for smuggling arms. The central figure in the fantastic story is Reuben Schenzvit, who once sold arms in South America for the late 1 Sir Basil Zaharoff, Europe's munitions merchant. Schenzvit was given preliminary hearing before British Magistrate Paget Bourke on a charge of slaying Jacob Zwanger, 50-year-old Russian Jew and one-time Soviet vice commissar of harbours. Schenzvit denied the charges. Police charge that the actual slayer was Abdul Xhader, an Arab, employed by Schenzvit and in gaol here. The Arab has admitted killing the Russian and alleged Schenzvit ordered him to do so, detectives working with British intelligence officers said. In Orange Grove. Police investigation began with the disappearance of Zwanger the night of March 10. Seventeen days later the Russian's body was found in a sandy cave, knifed and bludgeoned, in an orange grove near Schenzvit's closely guarded home in Ramat Gan, a Jewish colony. Zwanger had directed the Hagonah, secret Jewish self-defence society. The society was so organised that each member knew only his immediate superior, and none of his fellow members. i

Police believed the man was slain because he knew of operations by a foreign espionage service. Quickly, the Royal Air Force intelligence service took charge of the investigation. These developments tumbled one upon the other. Both Zwanger and Schenzvit had worked in the Argentine. Both came here ten years ago. Schenzvit's house contained a powerful, unlicensed radio, a dozen microphones and dictographs hidden behind the pictures and mirrors. Police had to look four days to find them. Schenzvit explained he was a radio fan and installed the extra equipment to amuse his guests. The house had an underground chamber, and in it was found a bloodstained sledge hammer. A secret tunnel from this chamber led to within 400 yards of the orange grove where Zwanger's body was found. Zwanger possessed plans for both the tunnel and the radio equipment at his own home in Tel Aviv.