ARREST OF A LADY SWINDLER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

ARREST OF A LADY SWINDLER.

An audacious female swindler has been arrested in Paris. Her ruling vice appears to bo extravagance. In 1880 she married a millionaire and ruined him in three years. At the end of that time her husband was mysteriously murdered at Algiers, and what was left of his fortune was found, when his affaire was settled, to ba capable of producing an income of about) £150 a year, an amount quite inadequate to gratify his widow's extravagant tastes. In order to maintain her style of living she appears to have resorted to a series of ingonipus thefts. Giving herself out as the possessor of unlimited funds, she proceeded to buy several houses on credit, supplying as a reference the name of a notary, who acted as her accomplice, and testified as to her means. As soon as the title deeds of the houses were handed over to her she sold the houses for cash, and disappeared, leaving the former owners and the new purchasers to fight the question in the law courts. Always richly dressed, and constantly using a well-ap-appointed brougham, she succeeded in obtaining credit at a large number of shops, evading payment by changing her address. The complaints to the - police became so numerous that she was tracked by them andarre3ted just as she was on the point of buying another house in the manner customary to her. The amount this adventuress has obtained by such means is already known to reach two millions of francs.