ALLEGED BACKET

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 22

ALLEGED BACKET

FENCING IN BANKRUPTCY

PROMISE OF A "CLEAN-UP"

(By Air Mall,-from "The rost's" London Representative.) LONDON, August 29. ' Stanley William Tanfield, who is under sentence of seven years' penal servitude for share frauds, was questioned for about an hour at the Wormwood Scrubs Prison by Mr. Percy Phillips, trustee in bankruptcy for Tanfield and Mrs. Tanfield, regarding their When asked for the key of a safe deposit which he had rented in London, Tanfield said he had lost it and had not used the safe for some years. Little importance is now attached to this safe. It is understood that some of the questions put to Tanfield arose out of statements made by his' wife in Paris to Mr. Cecil Poppleton, an inquiry agent representing Mr. Phillips. It is stated- that Mr. Max Gerson, a dealer of Portman Street, W., has consented to appear at the hearing before the Registrar of the Bankruptcy Court of proceedings in the bankruptcies of Tanfield and his' wife. Mr. Gerson is believed to have bought some of the furnishings at Tanfield's house, White Place, Taplow. Mr. Abraham Kacher, a.London fur dealer, claims ownership of White Place.

Mr. Phillips is said to be preparing for the likelihood of a big clean-up of the bankruptcy racket. The case, he declared, will be as big as was the Leopold Harris fire trial in its own sphere. , "I am primarily concerned in seeing that the Tanfield creditors get their 20s in the £~" he remarked, "but I have been amazed at the ramifications of bankruptcy swindling which we have come upon. It may result in a clean up of the 'fences] and hangers-on to financiers, who make a practice of disposing of valuable assets when bankruptcies occur and holding them in safety until the bankrupt has served his sentence."

So far, Mr. Phillips revealed, the names of 30 people, many of them known in City circles, have been connected with the investigations*