NEW ZEALANDER DUPED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 19 January 1927, Page 9

NEW ZEALANDER DUPED.

STORY of A GAMBLE IN FRANCS. LARGE SUM Ob MONEY LOST. Received noon to-day. Lou's D O , .j -ai i. I fc. Baielay otherwise' known as Biear•jy, who was charged witu conspiracy to roo Liie New z.ea la nuei, Mcjxay, was discharge:! , the Crown JUnseeutor not .; it© ring evidence. The prosecutor announced that Alas on was pleading guilty to- stealing two or AltJvay’s bank notes, of £IOO and £SO respectively. There were strong reasons lor proceeding with these two charges only, though they represented a .small proportion of a big fraud. Mason, passing as Monroe, a wealthy Queenslander, met McKay on board ship, en route from New Zealand to Gan Francisco, in May, 1926. Barclay was -also on the- ship and the three men soon established a close friendship. The seed wn-s carefully eown for .six months. They parted at Los Angeles, but foregathered at London, then -after a trip to the Rivierra Mason one day in November, accompanied McKay to Oornhill, where he pointed out a man whom the prosecutor -regretted was not in custody. He would call him “Mister A”. “A” was actually co-conspirator in the fraud. Mason introduced McKay, saying that “A” had just made a quarter of a million on the Stock Exchange. “A” invited Mason and McKay to join in speculations in francs. The prosecutor said: “It seems ridiculous nonsense, showing that the gullibility of human nature is infinite, but then and there McKay and Mason signed documents instructing an international exchange to invest £15,000 apiece. Fifteen minutes later “A” reported that they had won £33.000 hut could not obtain the money until all. three bad shown an ability to bear an equivalent loss. McKay thereupon dretv £15.000 from bis bank. “A”_ produced what appeared to be £7OOO in notes, and Mason similarly £BOOO, which Mason took to -show the manager of the mythical excahnge. When Ma-son returned, he said that he had put the whole profits, including McKay’s security of £15,000 into a new gamble. Naturally this was the end of the matter. McKay was furious at Mason’s unauthorised action. Mason and “A” put things right and disappeared. Later “A,” by means of telegrams, decoyed McKay to Paris and then to Milan and tried to entice him to Alexandria, but McKay was ill and gave up the pursuit. Ho returned to London and informed the police. The notes specified had been cashed.” Mason, front the dock, said: “The temptation was too great lor me.” The prosecutor said that Mason had a bad record. He was a well-known confidence trickster. Hie magistrate, in sentencing him to a year’s ha-rcl labour, said that the limitation of the charge may have been due to Mason’s youth or perhaps it had been assumed that he was acting as an agent for a more experienced criminal. A London message la.st week stated that Francis Brearie.y and James Mason were remanded on a charge of stealing and receiving £IO,OOO to £15,000 from a Wellington (New Zealand) architect James Hector McKay. There is also a charge of conspiracy with a man not yet arrested, to defraud McKay of £15.000.