LETTERS FROM SPAIN

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4527, 5 April 1934, Page 4

LETTERS FROM SPAIN

SUCCESSFUL CONFIDENCE TRICK. For years past it was thought that tales of a prisoner in Spain purporting to have a fortune in gold in Australia have been used systematically by European confidence tricksters, but it appears that one organisation was at the back of this strange type of roguery. Hundreds of New Zealanders have during recent years, it is believed, received letters from Spain saying that if they could send the requisite £2OO or £3OO needed

for the release of a prisoner from durance vile in a Spanish gaol, the freed man would immediately ii. .Dart to his benefactor one third or more of a fortune (usually stated at £75,000) in a far distant country, which he could not realise without liberty. How many fell for the trick will never be known for obvious reasons, but the world is to have a respite at last from this nuisance. It appears that this notorious character, whose heartrending tales of languishing- behind imaginary bars have preyed on the entire white races

for over half a century, has been caught in France and handed over to the authorities. By name Lucca Gomez, aged 59, and a native of Barcelona, he was lured into France from Spain by a prospective victim, who pretended to be interested in the treasure story, also by Gomez's proposals that he should take over the guardianship of his beautiful daughter. He turned up in France with a tale of a miraculous escape, aided by the prison chaplain, but the police were waiting for him at the rendezvous. Spanish prison authorities said that, although the man had never actually been inside a prison, he and his family had made quite a respectable fortune from the ruse, the victims always being too ashamed of their stupidity to acknowledge the thefts to the police. Now perhaps any further such letters may bear an air of unmistakable authenticity !