LONDON ARREST

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1935, Page 5

LONDON ARREST

“CONFIDENCE” MAN CAUGHT. LONDON, June 30. Stated to have been the subject. o< a special police memorandum issued before the Jubilee celebrations a eoniidenee trickster was at London hessians sentenced to three years’ penal servo j tude for stealing £IOO f«>m Mr ~er Josef van Huysteen. a Sou* African Civil Servant. Me was Gerald Riviere, aged 10. • Mr Heaufoi .Moore, prosecuting, said that the case w'as notable for , the simplicity of the victim, and the ingenuity of Riviere. Mr van Huysteen became acquainted with Rivieie am another man, the latter saving that 1,0 had inherited £1,000,000 on condition that he distributed part of it to cliii cities. Mr van Huysteen, as proof that lu>. was a man ol means and lit to undei take the distribution in South Alricn. handed £IOO to Riviere and the other man. Detective-Inspector Street said that Riviere, who had ten previous convictions, had written his criminal life history, but it had not yet been published. He (Inspector Street) bell ieved that Riviere was a member ot a notorious gang of confidence men. It was the practice of confidence men to conceal themselves until their Colonial victims had left the country, and then to flaunt themselves in front of I lie police. “In tli is case Riviere himself has been duped, lie was under the impression that his victim had left the United Kingdom when, in tact, ho had not.”