A MEMORABLE FRAUD RECALLED.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 21, 2 January 1907, Page 5

A MEMORABLE FRAUD RECALLED.

W BOunCtS THE BANK OF ENG* I LAUD. •- < r . i« ti* ttrMmi Dunbar of the . "Strand thfuiM" than is aa azoaiIcutly written article by Mr. C. F. | Bourko on the history of Pinkerton’s, L "the greatest detective agency in the I ■norld." Jt • The article iliuatrated by -photographs, retells some of the famous Crimea which the agency has unearthed, including the audacious swindle of the brothers Bidarcli. Austin Bldwell, the elder of tha two, and the man chiefly responsible for the plot.which resulted in securing one million sterling from the Bank of England, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. Before he was 30 ho was a prosperous broker, who made money and spent It a» easily ob if it were to be picked up on the street pavement. Presently he ran foul of an unlucky speculation ; at about the same time some official thieves — it was the time of Tweed, in New York—approached him with an ofler to negotiate for them a large quantity of stolen bonds. Bidwell needed money badly, and he readily consented. Being a man of good education and appearance, and well skilled in the ways of finance, he took

the bonds to Europe and there disposed of them without difficulty. His share of the booty was £2,000. On hie return the same band of criminals—of whom the head of the New York Detective Department was the chief—was ready with proposals of new swindling games, in which Bidwell was quite ready to embark. The first was an attempt to forge a will, which finally failed. But while the conspirators were waiting for the outcome of the (dot, they kept themselves in ready money by forging and successfully passing at the banking house of Jay Cook and Company a cheque for £4,000 payable to bearer. Encouraged by their easy success in this direction, they then proceeded to make elaborate preparations for swindling the same banking firm out of no less than £50,000 in hard cash But the failure of this plan taught no lesson to the Bidwclls. They simply shook off the dust of New York arid sailed for Europe, there to practise their wiles on the opulent and unsuspecting bankers of the Continent. With them wont as a friend and fellow-conspirator a man of extraordinary ability and education, who will figure in tho rest of this narrative simply as ‘‘Mac.’’ Within a few weeks the three men had obtained more than £12.000 by making drafts on forged letters of credit, which Were cashed by bankers in various Herman and French cities. Then they foregathered in London, and there as they walked about the streets with • till this 111-gotten wealth in their jackets. tho daring idea came into the mind of Austin Bidwell of making a crafty assault on the Batik of England—the supposedly impregnable '•'Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” . ' But with £4,000 in cash as his ycorking capital, Austin Bidwell set ft bout solving the problem before him In a way that was as simple as it was effective. He watched the depositors at the bank until he had settled lon a firm of rich and long-cstablish- »,[ tailors, as the most suitable for Jiis purpose. Wearing a large, lighthat, and otherwise Iftmd.^SfasM American--sftster. kh.tf. fie drove up to the shop, and in hnlfH— xn-hour ordered clothes to be made to the value of full £2OO, giving at the same time the name of F. A. tVarren, and his address as the Golden Cross Hotel. The tradesmen were •properly impressed. Two weeks later J afr Warren duplicated the order, say- * xng at the same time that he was (leaving the next week for a fortnight's shooting with Lord Clancarty fin Ireland, and would send a porttnanteau for the clothes calling for a tha trunk on his way, from the hotel I ko thu railway station. By I khis time the thrifty tailor was alB most overcome by the magnificience B o', his rich American patron, and, ns the writer explains, the thief had lit- ■ Jlc difficulty in securing an introduction to the firm’s bankers, the Bank of England. Leaving money in the Bank of England on deposit, the two young Americans wrote a letter from r Frankfort to the Bank of England, F . enclosing drafts for £13,000, which ' * were to be deposited to the credit of Mr. F. A. Warren, the name under which Austin Bidwell had opened his

account. This letter was signed with the name of a well-known Frankfort panker, who referred to Warren as rail “distinguished client,” and stated that the money had been sent him for deposit by Warren from St. Petersburg. Then Austin Bidwell west to Paris and wrote to the Manager of the Bank of England asking file advice as to the purchase of I bonds, at the same time calling atr f tention to the fact that he was a deI positor at the bank. On receipt of I tha Utter of advice he made a cheque for £IO,OOO on his account in the bank, sent it to the manager, and asked that bonds to that amount might be purchased and forwarded to HP his address. As soon as received the bonds were sold and the proceeds ref deposited, new bonds being immediaf t«ly purchased through the agoncy of < tha manager. This process was kept I up until the manager of the Bank * of England was naturally convinced that Mr. F. A. Warren was an immensely wealthy man, whose patronage was well worth having. Thoreupon tha pseudo Warren called per- — sonally on the manager in London and auceaded in deepening the impresaion that he was an American millionaire. The noxt step in the plot was to buy a whole series of genuine HP acceptances—a sort of promissory notes, due three or six months in advance—and wait until the bank had become thoroughly accustomed to Mr. Warren's dealing in this sort of paper. This step was successfully taken. j Thero remained only the negotiation of the carefully forged acceptances. In order to make detection as difficult as possible, it was arranged that Austin Bidwell, who had figured as F. A. Warren, should leave 4 England before the first batch of forged paper was presented, and that the subsequent operations should be carried on by a man named Noyes, g who was now for the first time brought ronspirucy.^and

Austin Bidwell left London'two days before the fraudulent operatiesu begun, was married in Parted* a youag English girl who had no subpfcion of his criminal career, and started with his bride lor Mexico, fleet securing, ■however, from his fellow comparators a trifle of £BO.OOO in caah out of the first proceeds of their forgeries. They stopped at the island of Cuba, and there, with youth, plenty of money, and good appearance in their favour, they soon found Monde. A whole month was spent in a succession of house-parties and hunting and exploring expeditions. FI salty, one day Austin Bidwell picked up a copy of the “New York Herald."- It contained these headlines" Amazing fraud upon the Bank of England : Millions are lost : Great .Excitement in London : Five Thousaind Pounds Keward Offered for the Arrest of the American Perpetrator, K. A. Warren’t So the secret was out 1 Tha conspiracy was discovered. But Austin Bidwell still had no cause for fear. No person in all Europe knew his whereabouts. His real name had never been mentioned in connection with the whole conspiracy. How the Pinkertons got on the track of the culprit, and how he was run to earth, forms a part of the article from which we have quoted.