COINS FLOWN TO FRANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 December 1945, Page 6

COINS FLOWN TO FRANCE

£9,600 FINES FOR SMUGGLING. LONDON, September 22. Terms of imprisonment and fines totalling £9,600 were imposed at Bow Street, yesterday on two French airmen' and a Pole for their part in a scheme to smuggle gold from Britain to the French black market. Georges Leo Docluik, 25, and Paul Gaillaird, the airmen, and Paul Szykman, 34, of Cumberland Court, were charged with conspiring to buy and sell gold bullion to the value of £344. They pleaded guilty to conspiring to send the bullion out of the country. Gaillaird pleaded guilty to paying £3,000 to Szykman for bullion. Szykman pleaded guilty to failing to offer sovereigns and half-sovereigns to the Treasury. Mr. L. D. Barry, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, stated that Docluik borrowed from his father £l,OOO, and bought gold wherever he could in Britain, paying £7 and. £8 for a sovereign. He placed the coins in a suitcase and handed it to a captain in the French Air Force. The captain on arrival in France gave, it to Doduik’s sister. In a letter to Docluik his father said that the proceeds of the sale of one consignment of coins amounted to 1,203,625 francs. The cost to Docluik had been £2,145, and the sales price of £3,000 gave him a profit of about 40 per cent. As a result of the case 60 people had been arrested in France, including the captain, Dodiuk’s father and sister, and other members of his family. The gold had been recovered, and , would be surrendered to the Treasury. Doduik was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and fined £8,200 or a further 12 months’ imprisonment. Gaillaird was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and fined £l,OOO or another six months’ imprisonment. „ Szykman was sentenced to 28 days' imprisonment and fined £4OO or another two months’ imprisonment. Szykman gave notice, of appeal against the prison sentence.