ILL-STARRED VENTURES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 29, 5 January 1931, Page 7

ILL-STARRED VENTURES.

FROM WEALTH TO POVERTY,

EX-MILLIONAIRE’S SUICIDE

LONDON, Jan. 3. Mohammed Alasegoff, aged 42, an Egyptian financier, once one of the richest men in the world, and Zainulabdin, his cousin, were found dead in a gas-filled kitchen at Golder s Green. Both died in most extreme poverty. Mohammed Alasegoff, after his education at Cambridge, returned to his home in Singapore. During the latter part of the rubber boom Ire invested a large inheritance and became a millionaire within a year. He did not know the extent of his own wealth. He was the centre of a distinguished social circle, and entertained lavishly. Eventually he turned Ins attention to the turf and maintained palatial stables with picked racehorses from Australia. Alasegoff drove around the city in a magnificent high tandem, with gorgeous-liv-eried Indian footmen.. He was also among the leaders in arranging a welcome to the Prince of Wales at Malaya, and feted . every distinguished person visiting Singapore. Alasegoff's troubles began during the rubber slump in 1920-21. He sold out liis interests and invested in tin. He was at Hollywood last year, when his tin interests also crashed. Rescuing the merest fraction of his former fabulous fortune, he went to Nice and lost every penny at the gambling tables. His cousin had to send him his fare to bring him to London.