ESPIONAGE PLOT ALLEGED

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22338, 28 February 1938, Page 11

ESPIONAGE PLOT ALLEGED

Three Arrests In United States SELLING SECRETS ABROAD "A European Country" Involved (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received February 27, 9.45 p.m.) WASHINGTON, February 27. Mr J. Edgar Hoover (Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) announced that three persons—an attractive German woman aged 26, and two United States soldiers—had been arrested for connexion with a gigantic plot to sell American military secrets to a European country. Mr Hoover said that two confessions had already been obtained. The three persons arrested, who will be charged with espionage, were Gunther Rumrich, aged 27, a sergeant of th§. United States Army who deserted in 1935 (he was born in the United States but received his education in Germany, where he spent most of his life); Erich Glaser, aged 28, a private of the air defence post at Mitchell Field, New York (a native of Germany); and Johanna Hoffman, aged 26, of Dresden, a hairdresser on the liner

Europa. The plot was discovered when the alleged spy ring attempted to obtain 50 passport applications, apparently to enable spies to enter Russia under the comparative safety of falsified American passports. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that the arrests are considered to be of the greatest importance. Many other arrests are expected to follow.