AN INVOLVED CASE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 9

AN INVOLVED CASE

The Stavisky case, one of the most celebrated and also one of the most complicated in the history of France, begau with the revelation early last year that the Credit Municipal (municipal pawnshop) of Bayonne had issued fraudulent bonds to the extent of 400,000,000 francs. Stavisky . was shown to have organised this fraud with the connivance of officials, and on the heels of this disclosure' came the revelations first that he was • swindler with a police record, but yet possessing sufficient political influence to be seen dining in public with members of the Government, and second that he was dead. The police found him shot, though even about the circumstances of the discovery there were the contradictions which have marked almost every development in the case since then. It was freely stated by some Parisian papers that he had been shot by the police, the "Action Francaise" had even predicted before the discovery of his body that he would be found, murdered, and the riots in Paris in February, 1934, were due as much to the Stavisky scandal as to anything else. The fraudulent bonds had been widely purchased by insurance companies and savings banks and even commended to these savings banks by an official letter sent out by M. Dalamier. Minister of the Colonies, and in the published newspaper charges the names of many prominent politicians were mentioned as implicated Stavisky, it was true, had been masquerading .under the name of Serge Alexandre, but he was widely known to be Stavisky. and to have been in prison on two occasion's. Madame Stavisky was held soon after the revelations were first made, she protested against this fact in August, 1934. when she had been. six months in prison without being charged, and was released last April on the ground that there was no legal justification for holding her any longer.