FORGOTTEN WAR FUND

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1929, Page 4

FORGOTTEN WAR FUND

REVELATIONS IN DENMARK. The suicide not long ago in Denmark, of Gustav Arendrup, a wellknown man in an important and trusted position in the Ministry of Commerce, aroused the suspicion of his superiors, and an investigation revealed that during a period of six years Arendrup had embezzled sums totalling a quartei’ of a million kroner from a fund which had been in his sole charge. The fund, which amounted to one million kroner, had accrued from a wartime marine insurance scheme. The money had been deposited in the Landmands Bank, and the accountbook, placed in a safe-deposit box, to which only Arendrup had a key. Owing to the frequent changes of Ministry, no proper record of the fund had been kept; in fact, the former Minister of Commerce makes the startling statement that he had no knowledge whatever of its existence! Only through a belated payment to the fund was attention suddenly called to the matter, and Arendrup was informed that the accounts in this connection would now be examined and settlement made. A few days later the Ministry was notified by Arendrup’s wife that her husband was dead, and it became known that he had shot himself.

Following on this affair, the various Ministeries instituted an examination of all financial matters, and as a result an embezzlement of 50,000 kroner from a trust fund in the Ministry of Justice is reported. In this case the culprit had, in 1911, omitted to include a certain trust fund in the list of such tunas kept by the Ministry, and had XZXTdlte' 1 ’ 6 I,oney