GIRL SPIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 305, 27 December 1939, Page 7

GIRL SPIES.

ABROAD IN EUROPE.

Bogus Blondes Yamp Ar

Secrets.

MANY GAOLED IN ITALY.

LONDON, December 22.

Attractive vamps are abroad in the intelligence services of belligerents, according to reports from neutral countries.

Switzerland recently put in the doek a daring brunette dancer called Nina, whose real name came out as Virginia Capt Rota.

Xina was reported to have been arrested on the frontier when about to enter France with a wad of Swiss antiaircraft secrets. It was alleged that her aim was to deliver them by a zigzag route to Italy. °

While awaiting trial, Xina, perhaps remembering the firing squad which the 1914-18 war vamp Mata Hari faced at Vincennes, refused food.

Then she opened her veins in the high Roman fashion. Bandaged, she was placed on the stand and sentenced to five years in prison.

Others who lost their liberty *>r having been connected with the affair were Roger Joel, Swiss arms factorv draughtsman; Geneva detective Paul Rochat and his wife, Dolly.

From Holland come tales of women spies whose blonde hair is as bogus as their American accents. Thev try to muss up the emotions of stolid Dutch •officers, whose idea of a thick night is coffee and cigars.

Italy is reported to have gaolfuls of vamping spies, alleged to have represented countries as far apart as Ecuador and Iran.

There are tales from all over Europe of gorgeously clad ladies being pulled out of trains at nijrht by sleuths in hard hats. Their offences ran<re from kissing young officers to currency smuggling.