ALLEGED "CONFIDENCE TRICK."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10972, 28 January 1899, Page 5

ALLEGED "CONFIDENCE TRICK."

Yesterday evening Acting-Detective Boddam, in company with Detectives Maddern and Bailey, arrested a man named Frederick Lester, a respectable-looking man, in the suburbs, on a provisional warrant (as he appeared to answer the description of a man "wanted" in Sydney, by the police authorities), on a charge of conspiring with a man named P. G. Murphy, to cheat and defraud Fredk. Jas. Fraser, between September 13 and 19, 1898, at Sydney, of divers large sums of money, to wit, £450, by means of the "confidence trick." It appears that the accused, accompanied by his wife, have been in the colony about two months. They visited Dunedin and Christchurch, and came on to Auckland, after which they went to the Lake Country, where they have been for the past fortnight or three weeks. Accused came down from

Rntorua yesterday afternoon, and from information received, was arrested as above bv Acting-Detective Boddam. At the Lake Country Lester was regarded as an Australian tourist. His linkage was taken possession of by the detectives. Accused will be brought up at the Police Court this morning, with a view to applying for a remand in order to communicate with the New South Wales police authorities.