SPIES AT WORK IN EUROPE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21120, 22 March 1934, Page 9

SPIES AT WORK IN EUROPE

♦ j AN' INTERNATIONAL GANG SENSATIONAL CONFESSIONS OF TWO AMERICANS (rjfITED FP.E = S ASSOCIATION"—Vf? ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH —COI'YF.IGIIT.) | (Received March 21, 5.5 p.m.) | PARIS, March 20. | The foreign espionage case which ■ was unearthed in December as the result of long investigations by the special secret service, is developing into what the French police describe as the biggest sensation in i the history of gang spying, and is ! likely eventually to involve 200 | arrests. ! The confessions of the two Amerii cans who were arrested, Robert j Switz and his wife, show that an : international gang, supplied with ' unlimited money, was working for j Germany and Russia to the detriment of Great Britain, France, and the United States. After speaking to Switz the police rounded up suspects and arrested 16. They discovered a code conveying information of vital importance relative to the industrial mobilisation of France, and a record of payments to French officers and engineers. The documents obtained by the gang were sent to Switzerland, where they were copied and sent on to Moscow and Berlin. The trial is expected to begin in j July. j [Twelve suspects were arrested by : the French Secret Service on J)e- ---■ comber 20. and much Polish, Russian, and German correspondence was seized. It was believed that the spy organisation had at least 40 agencies iii various parts of Europe, controlled by | a nomadic headquarters moving from ! capital to capital as risks demanded it. The alleged ringleaders were Benjamin Bercowitz, a Rumanian-born Canadian merchant, and his wife. Switz's wife was an expert wireless openn or and photographer. Others arrested inducted Louis Martin, an interpreter in the French Ministry of Marine, and Lvdia Stah], a Russian woman who speaks 10 languages.! I j A SCOTLAND YARD VIEW SWITZ AND IIIS WIFE .MERE CATSI'AWS ; (Received March 21, 7 p.m.) LONDON, March 21. Officials of Scotland Yard believe that Colonel Switz, the American, ' and his British wife are catspaws jin a vast organisation. They hurriedly .departed from London in 1932, leaving a book containing the rudiments of a code which indicated that there was a woman who lived in a flat in South-West London directing their operations. The woman, however, could not be traced. SPYING ALLEGED IN PRAGUE PRAGUE. March 20. The police claim to have unearthed an espionage organisation working in the interests ef_ Germany, "and have arretted 25 persons. !