DUPED BY TRICKSTERS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 151, 23 December 1926, Page 5

DUPED BY TRICKSTERS

A CORNISHMAN'S LOSS

JUGGLING AVITH THOUSANDS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, 16th November. From time to time wealth visitors from the Dominions are relieved of large sums of money by "confidence tricksters." A year or so ago a New Zealander in London was relieved of £2000, and this past summer it was reported that another New-Zealander had lost £5000 in Italy in this way, though the details of the incident were never revealed. A story told by the "Daily Mail" regarding a Cornishman demonstrates the methods employed by those clever rogues in extracting money from their victims. There are two men using the names of Walker and Bond who are known to the authorities as tho principal agents of ah international organisation, and these are the men who figure in the present swindle. The Cornishman was spending a holiday at San Remo, and was awaiting the arrival of the London newspapers at a kiosk, when the trickster—who has since been identified as Walker approached, and, overhearing his order to the attendant, remarked that "it was a treat to hear English being spoken." Walker stated that he was travelling alone for health and had business interests as a diamond merchant in Capetown and other parts of South Africa. He bore himself as an • invalid and mentioned the name of a nursing home which he. said he had just left after an operation. A PROFIT OF £200,000. Other meetings between the two took place, and one day AValker point"cd out a man sitting near whom, he stated, he was sure lie had met at the house of a prominent London financier. Walker approached him, and the man, after a long pretence that he did not recognise Walker, ultimately said he was able to recall the circumstances of the alleged meeting in London. This man has since proved to be Bond, believed to belong to the United States.

Bond stated that he was orio of the European managers of a syndicate, controlled from New York by seven American millionaires, which daily operated on the Continental exchanges. He declared that he was worried owing to the fact that he was likely to be suspended by the syndicate, because an interview with him had appeared in an American newspaper describing , the circumstances in which he hafl made a profit of £200,000 on exchange transactions in one afternoon.

He produced what appeared to be a stamped contract with tho syndicate containing a condition that he would be liable to instant dismissal if he ever revealed the nature or extent of its operations.

At a later meeting Bond stated that his suspension seemed so likely that he' was determined to "make a bit for himself" beforehand by using the information about the financial markets contained in the cablegrams from the syndicate, three of which he received daily and always showed to Walker and the English visitor. He suggested to Walker and the Cornishman that they might co-operate with him. TELEGRAMS FROM AMERICA. From San Remo the three men went to Turin, and following tho receipt of a cablegram from America, Bond gave Walker about £4000 and instructions how he should buy certain stocks on the local exchange that day. Walker, on returning, made the statement that there had been a clear, profit of £45,000, but that he had been refused a settlement until he and his fellow-investor (the Cornishman) were able to produce proof, or lodge a deposit of. £100,000 each as evidence that they w.ould have been able to settle a losing account. Bond at once cabled"- to a friend in America for £10,000, and received a reply signed "Margaret," who, he said, was his friend's wife, stating that he had gone to the Argentine and remitting £5000 and an offer of a guarantee for a further £15,000. VICTIM SELLS HIS WAR STOCK.' On the strength of this the Cornishman, accompanied by Walker, proceeded to London to realise his shares. The Cornishman sold £5000 work of war loan stock and cabled the proceeds to a bank in Turin. Walker later stated that he had also sent a similar amount and would draw another £5000 from an Antwerp bank. •Reaming to Turin, the two men were met by Bond, who said he had been ordered to Brussels. On his advice the 'Cornishman withdrew his £5000 from the Turin bank so that it might be deposited at the Brussels Exchange, and Walker, after pretending to telephone to bankers in Antwerp for £5000 to be sent to him at Brussels, also "agreed" to withdraw his £5000. At Brussels, Walker, who now had charge of the Cornishman's £5000, was again sent to the exchange with instructions to sell certain stocks. When he returned he stated that he had invested £69,000, and casually remarked that it had been unusually easy to buy the stocks. SCENE STAGED FOR THE OCCASION. "Whatf" Bond screamed, "do you mean to say you have been buying. I told you to sell!" As he said this Bond rushed at his confederate as if to assault him, and only desisted when Walker besought him to remember that he was an invalid.

This "scene," staged for the occasion, deceived the still unsuspecting Cornishman into the belief that a genuine mistake had been made, and he accepted Bond's advice to proceed to Zurich with the assurance that their losses would be recovered" there. Bond stated that after settling his own business in Brussels ho would follow by the nighty train, but the Cornishman has not seen him or Walker again. A visit to Scotland Yard has revealed to him that the financial operator and the invalid are the subjects of a world-wide police search.