MISSING FINANCIER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 49, 26 August 1939, Page 10

MISSING FINANCIER

MORE ARRESTS MADE

INVESTORS' LOSSES

WOOLCOTT FORBES CASE

(From "T 1"-} Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, August 18.

Important developments are expected next week in the mystery surrounding the disappearance of John Woolcott Forbes, the Sydney financier who absconded from bail in Bombay, where he had been arrested on a charge of conspiracy to defraud. Intensive search for him for many months by English and French police failed. A Sydney detective spent six months in Europe on a quest.

The next development in the case are expected to take place in the State Parliament. Mr. J. A. Lee, one of the so-called U.A.P. "malcontents," will ask -x- a searching inquiry.

"I intend to request the Government tc probe the whole business," Mr. Lee said. "Information which has come to me alleges that the Crown Law Department, having received certain advice from a leading firm of solicitors in November, 1938, delayed taking any action against Woolcott Forbes until January, 1939. If true, this is a serious matter.

In November, 1938, the newly-ap-pointed directors of the Producers' and. General Finance Corporation made an exhaustive examination of the company's affairs. Mr. G. Scarfe, a director, said at a meeting of the company this week that certain discoveries, which were alleged to implicate Woolcott Forbes, were immediatelymade known to the company's solicitors (Stephen, Jaques, and Stephen). The solicitors were advised to communicate immediately with the Crown Law Office. They wrote, and subsequently interviewed the Crown Law Office, advising that a certain course of action against Woolcott Forbes should be taken at once. They also interviewed the Criminal Investigation Branch chiefs, Mr. Scarfe concluded.

It is alleged that the advice tendered thy. Crown Law Office in November was not taken. Woolcott Forbes left/ Australia in January this year. When it was known that he was in India, the solicitors applied to the Crown Law Office for an extradition warrant to bring him back to Sydney. Not until Stephen, Jaques, and Stephen had pressed their application and, threatened to take a "most unusual course," it was stated, was DetectiveSergeant A. Nye sent to Bombay with a warrant for Woolcott Forbes's arrest. MINISTER REFUSES TO SPEAK. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Martin) refused to discuss these allegations. "Not one word will I say on the Woolcott Forbes case," he said. At the Producers' and General Finance Corporation's meeting this week, a shareholder alleged that the investing public hai lost more than £2,000.000 in this and other companies. A report prepared by a hew board of directors last November, when the collapse of the Woolcott Forbes schemes began, stated that the profit and loss account was £406,731 in debit. A sensation was caused when the arrest was made on Wednesday night of Ronald Bruce Walker, a solicitor and a member of the Legislative Assembly for seven years, on a charge of conspiring with the missing Woolcott Forbes. Protesting vehemently, Walker was taken from a train at a town about 150 miles from Sydney while travelling from Sydney. Walker was chairman of the Scottish Loan and Finance Company, Ltd., now m liquidation, and into whose affairs the police have been conducting an intensive inquiry since the company s offices were raided and documents and books seized about three months ago. It was then stated that the company s affairs were entangled with those ot Woolcott Forbes. At the same time as Walker was arrested, Albert Levitus, manager, and Clive Oscar Airey, secretary, of the Scottish Loan and Finance Company, were arrested in Sydney on similar charges.