AMERICAN BLACKMAILING GANG.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 272, 2 November 1916, Page 2

AMERICAN BLACKMAILING GANG.

VICTIMS DECOYED BY WOMEN. New York, Sept, 21. Eight members of an alleged blackmail gang, charged with using the beauty of their women members and tiie fascinating powers of their male confederates to mulct wealthy men and women out of more than 250,000 dollars, are in custody of Federal authorities in Chicago, and wil. be taken to Philadelphia for trial. The hand, including five men and three women, were arrested in a. raid by Department of Justice’ officials in a fashionable apartment hotel. They are accused of fleecing men and women of social prominence in Chicago, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia through . organised efforts. Their scheme, according to Mr. Hinton G. Clabaugh, of the Department of .Justice, was to compromise their victims and then blaekmai. them. Impersonation of Department of Justice officials is anothei’ charge against the men. The women confederates are said to have won attention from wealthy men and then, it is alleged, the men threatened their victims with prosecution under the Mann Act. The chief charge against the band is the alleged kidnapping of Mrs. Bogina H. Clifford, of Philadelphia; one of their victims and wanted as a Government witness. She was spirited away to Canada, .at the time she was wanted to testify against the hand. Mr. Clabaugh said there were 15 known victims of the gang, and that the amount obtained from these victims probably wil! reach 250,000 dollars. Forty thousand dollars were obtained from one person and 35,000 dollars from another. The authorities refused to reveal the names of the victims. Some, it was said, are men prominent in political life who were victimised while at the Repub.ican Convention last June. As a result of the exposure of this bank of blackmailers, a widespread demand is being made for the repeal of the White Slave Traffic Act, which has made the operation of such a hand easy. When the White Slave Traffic Act, usually called the Mann Act, was reported by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Representative Adamson, of Georgia, said that its provisions were “liable to furnish boundless opportunity to hold-up and blackmail ” Such newspapers as were not obsessed by the then prevailing myth of an international and interstate “syndicate” trafficking in women took the same view, besides'pointing out the inherent absurdity' of promoting a police court offence into a Federal | felony by the mere crossing of a State line.