Studying Frauds Inc.

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32213, 4 February 1970, Page 19

Studying Frauds Inc.

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, Feb. 3. A group of cigarpuffing company directors. who meet at their plush London headquarters each week to discuss million-pound deals are under Scotland Yard’s scrutiny, the “Evening News” reported yesterday.

The business organisation, not one quoted on the Stock Exchange, is run by an executive of criminals. Their business is big-time fraud, coolly and carefully worked out round a boardroom table in the heart of London. Scotland Yard and Home Counties regional crime squads are trying to investigate the syndicate, which is known as Frauds Incorporated the paper says. Detectives believe that they work out frauds in the same

i way as legitimate business* 'men plot the course of a quoted company. Using an old trick known in legal circles as “long term fraud” they have been particularly active in Liverpool and South Wales picking out reputable companies to buy. then, working through intermediaries, the panel puts its own “stooges” in to run the businesses.

The companies are usually in the buying and selling lines—clothes, fancy goods, toys, machinery. For several months, or even a year, the business carries on honestly, expanding and building up a good name before buying up large quantitles of goods on credit, selling them quickly and going bankrupt at the same time, to spirit away the profits. A senior detective said that tjie “stcoge” would be convicted for fraud and get a gaol sentence. “But he knows that he will probably spend most of his time in a relatively comfortable open prison and when he comes out he will have a generous pension for life from the panel,” he said.