MASTER CROOK CAUGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1937, Page 12

MASTER CROOK CAUGHT

SENTENCE OF FIVE YEARS Master crook of world-wide repute, Hyman Kurasch, aged 52, when sentenced at Plymouth Quarter Sessions to five years’ penai servitude, showed no signs of emotion, but stoutly defended the character of his attractive, blonde wife, 20 years his junior. When Detective-Inspector Greeno mentioned that Kurasch and his wife (who was not charged) had been running night clubs frequented by criminals and people of the underworld, he exclaimed: “It is not true that my wife and I have been associated with low-down night clubs. My wife should be here. , I expected her to be in court.” He glanced round the court and his voice broke when he said: “I cannot understand why she is not here; but if you saw her you would realise that she is not the type of woman to be mixed up with criminals or low-down night clubs.” In the evening Kurasch was allowed to see his wife who, unknown to him, had been waiting outside the Court, expecting his acquittal. Kurasch, who was described as a sports promoter of Bloomsbury, was sentenced for obtaining £2,300 bv a trick from Dr. H. S. Bradlaw, of Plymouth. A list of convictions against Kurasch, dating from 1915, for offences committee on both sides of the Atlantic, was read in court. The police suspect that he was the master mind behind the big whiteslave and dope-pedalling organisation. He kept behind the scenes to a great extent, however, and the police were never able to bring him to book for these activities. Kurasch carried on his criminal activities under a cloak of respectability. He lived with his wife in his flat in Judd Street. “Kurasch, who was always perfectly dressed, spoke with an educated accent and seemed one of the nicest fellows you could meet—quiet and unassuming,” said one who knew him. Mr. Alfred Kurasch, proprietor of a club in Soho, said: “My brother was a gambler. He would gamble on anything. He was well known in tlie West End, and particularly in the West Country, where all the family had attended fairs. “He ran a successful bookmaking business in Gray’s Inn Road, where he employed a number of people, and he at one time had a capital of about £100,000.” It was stated that. Kurasch and two other men got £2,300 from Dr. A. S. Bradlaw, of Plymouth, on the pre-1 tence of selling him Kruger sovereigns smuggled out of Germany. I