FINANCIER'S ARREST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13745, 9 May 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

FINANCIER'S ARREST.

■J £5,000,,C00 INVOLVED. i: A sensation .has been treated in fiuantia i circles in Paris by the news of the arre. ; 1 of a well-known financier and company . ■ promoter, M- JRocbette, who has beet & directly instrumental in issuing to tin i French public during the last three or fou years new securities for which -cash to th< i extent of over £5,000,000 has been sub ] scribed. When the news of M. Rochette'; e arrest, became known the whole of thes< * securities fell tremendously in price. Tin r warrant for the financier's arrest vraa is s sued on charges of swind transact ion: and fraud under the French Com panic l : i Act. The warrant was executed by M e Hainan!, chief of the Paris detective force e who arrested M. Rochette at his privati . residence, and then drove him, in tin 1 financier's own motor-car, to the Centra i Police Depot. AN KVENTITI. CAKKKB. M. Rochette. who is only 32 yea is o | age, has had a remarkable career. Hi " began life as a messenger . lioy ;in a rail a wav refreshment-room at Melitn, and at it tracted attention by the persistent desitt 1 he showed to educate himself in his span Y time. Then he got to Paris, and tool is lessons in book-keeping and accountancy j- He then succeeded in obtaining employ a nient as junior clerk in a French bank .1 Later, lie was employed in a concern know! as the Caisee de Mines, which got int< e financial trouble. M. Rochette saw hi: !• opportunity. - He circulated the customers . and offered to take the business over ant f get- back their money for them. This wa< . the starting point in his remarkable finaii cial career. From that time forward lit J became a sort- of financial wizard, coin . panics of all kinds sprang up at his bid ( ding, and in a couple of years lie em . ployed 400 clerks. So enormous did hi: . interests become that he founded greal banking company known as the Franco Espagnoel Bank, arid started a daih financial newspaper of his own. Through the closing of his two cliie 3 offices by the police 700 clerks were snd 1 denly thrown out of employment. It is '' stated, however, that, when the polio 1 raided the two 'establishments there was s a sum sufficient to meet all outstanding ' liabilities. ' When M. Rochette appeared at his old \ bank in the charge of detectives for the L " purpose of assisting the juge d'instmctior r in his investigations, lie was loudly hooted. cries being raised of " Down with Rochette," and " Stop thief." Yet in the afternoon, when he left his premises to return 1 to prison, he was just as loudly cheered, many of his employees being the most 1 enthusiastic in pressing forward to shake him by the hand. 1 One version says that the juge d'in- * struct ion found £160.000 in the coffers of 1 the Franco-Spanish Bank, whilst another I version declares that the liquid assets of [ the bank and other enterprises must be | nearly three-quarters' of a million sterling. AN INGKXIOUS THAI'. Gil Gins is responsible for the following story of how Rochette fished for clients. : He would send circulars to desirable personscapitalists and well-known . men of means—in elegant envelopes unfnnkcd, and not bearing the stamp of the firm. The recipients, seeing these choice envelopes, naturally paid the double postage without demur, for they all of course thought that the missive was from some absent-minded friend. Judge of their fury when they read the contents! They would sit down and tiro out a virulent letter at. Rochette. A day or two afterwards a gentleman of affable, nay, distinguished, manners, called upon them, tendered the apologies of the firm, and offered the double postage plus the penny which the reply had cost. From . that moment the client was in the net. Curiously enough, Pochette's cell is close to that of the diamond inventor Lcmoine. T '' _ ' ' ' ;