SWINDLING DE LUXE

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 May 1927, Page 4

SWINDLING DE LUXE

AIRCRAFT IN CRIME

Although he is still only seventeen years of age, Ernest Rodriguez, a young bank clerk of San Francisco, has succeeded within twelve months in getting his name written in block capitals on the records of the. police in as many countries as a. swindler without equal for coolness. He is now beginning a stay of five years in a French prison for fraud. A short year ago Rodriguez entered the Wells Fargo Rank in San Francisco, there to embark on what his parents regarded as a very promisingcareer.

Then one morning he disappeared. With him had also vanished —though this was not discovered for some little time —such banking office paraphernalia as a. certification stamp, a sheaf of bank cheques, a list of the names and addresses of the bank’s correspondents in various parts of the world, and actual signatures of various of the bank officials. The first indication that Ernest had chosen the broad path of crookedness came from the Montana, town of Butte. The youth had walked into a bank in Butte and asked to see the chief official. He then presented what was apparently a letter of introduction in Which he claimed to be a relative of high Wells Fargo officials. The young visitor’s needs were modest —just the cashing of a cheque for two hundred dollars. It was done with a smile —and Ernest promptly shook the dust of Butte from his feet. He went on to Nevada, and worked the same trick again, and passed forged cheques in half a dozen States. Having worked the United States pretty thoroughly, Ernest turned his attention to Canada, where he victimised Montreal and Toronto banks. In London he continued his pleasant little pastime of victimising banks, carrying out his swindles with amazing coolness and nerve. A tour of the provinces followed, and then Ernest crossed to Paris, which yielded him a rich and speedy haul. No fewer than four banks were victimised the same day he reached the gay city—and the day after that he was cashing cheques in Amsterdam!

Five days later he was busily at work in Berlin, and thence sped to Lucerne, Naples, Florence, Rome, Nice. Berne, Madrid, and a. dozen other cities—a golden trail littered with cleverly-forged cheques. He covered the entire ground in less than a month, and there is considerable reason for the belief that it was by using an aeroplane that he managed to move from point to point wih such amazing speed.

There were warrants out for him everywhere now, and his description and attainments were in the possession of the police of the world. Then he blundered. He walked into the Paris branch of the National City Bank one day and pushed across the counter a cheque for his favourite sum of two hundred dollars. Ernest was asked to step' into a wait-ing-room, and instantly realised that the game was up.