£1,000,000 MADE BY FRAUD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9305, 22 March 1907, Page 3

£1,000,000 MADE BY FRAUD.

The American police, after a three years' ohase, have succeeded in. capturing Dr. Richard G. Fowler, who is allegedi to be the most ingenious mining swindler in the States. Fowler has been operating for some time in Philadelphia under -the guise of an Oxford dan. who had discovered a remaikable method of making artificial diamonds. He issued a .remarkable prospectus, which stated that he had produced diamonds of greater value than the finest) products of Kimbearley, and that some of the most prominent business men in the city were alKedi'with him in the enterprise. He has' adopted so many disguises and assumed so many aliases, that when the police entered his offices with the warrant for his amresfc they could not believe' that fche schoJariy-lookrJng' old man with the venerable bea*d and the blue spectacles was the notorious criminal they wanted. Flower is believed to possess remarkable hypnotic powers, and he is credited -with having made in the cauise of his career at least £1,000,000 which he extracted from eßout 10,000 victims. Many of the latter were women -who gave their fortunes to support his wild-cat mining schemes. He was accused in 1904 of having floated a bogus copper mime in Montana. He bribed a district attorney to have the charges against him destroyed, and then broke a bail of £4000 for -which one of bis women friends stood, and decamped with, about £100,000.