STAMP FRAUDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 131, 4 May 1934, Page 8

STAMP FRAUDS

3.15 P.M. EDITIONf

POLES IMPRISONED. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received May 4, 10.45 a.m. LONDON, May 3. The Pole, Najmark, was sentenced to four years’ gaol and Polielec and Turek to two years 1 and recommended for deportation on the charge of being in possession of forged insurance stamps to a value of £44,700. All persisted in the denial that they knew anything about the stamps. In evidence last month Turek and Popielec denied that the trunks were theirs, but a key was found in the lining of Turek’s hat. The stamps were found beneath a cleverly concealed bottom tray. Scotland Yard, it w'as reported earlier, had run to earth an international gang of crooks who, for a year, had been forging bonds which they sold in London. The forgeries included British and United States Government securities and British insurance stamps valued at £40,000. Estimates of the frauds vary from £250,000 to £1,000,000. After his suspicions were aroused, a London detective flew by aeroplane to Warsaw and persuaded the Polish police to raid certain premises, where a parcel of forged securities was seized and further ramifications of the scheme disclosed. Thus far there had been 18 arrests, of which three were made in London.