POSED AS A SHEIK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 21

POSED AS A SHEIK.

COCKNEY IBRAHIM. FOOLS PARIS FOR TEN YEARS. BETRAYED BY A WOMAN. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LOXDOX, December 31. A Cockney ex-soldier, masquerading as a sheik, has fooled Paris society for 10 years. Many beautiful women are said to have fallen victims of his "Eastern" charm. He is now in the Sante Prison, Paris. The Shiek Ibrahim Ben All Ben Ibrahim —actually Charley Bruce, who was born in the Kast End of London—first made hirs appearance in certain Parisian niirht resorts in 1928, and his dark ekin, flashing eyes and black hair, combined with the traditional flowing roles of the Kast, caused him to be accented ae a direct descendant of the Prophet. Women were fascinated, and lie was never without a rich English or American partner ready to provide all the , money needed for the life of Oriental' luxury that he lived. He a strange language that ball'lcd the students of Arabic who were attracted to him, but these accepted his story that hie tongue wae a little-known dialect that had been handed down through the ages lind had become almost a monopoly of his tribe. The dialect was just a weird blend 1 of the purest Cockney and odd worde and phrarses of Hindustani and Arabic picked up by the "Sheik" when soldiering in the Eaet. The Sheik'e undoing came about through the jealousy of one of his women admirers who did not like sharing her Prince of the Desert with othera. She complained to the police that the 1 Sheik had been too free with her money and jewels. The detective made a I sudden irruption in the ealon of the '; luxurious euite occupied by the Sheik i in a famous Paris hotel. i He found the Child of the Desert in the middle of his "make-up." It was idle to protest. The champion mas- ! querader owned up, and the detective I found passports and other papers leav- ! ing no doubt a« to the identity of the 1 supposed identity of the Prophet.