AMAZING BANK FRAUD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20384, 12 October 1929, Page 11

AMAZING BANK FRAUD.

WALL STREET VICTIMISED.

SWINDLER AS A HERO.

DEPOSITORS WHO WERE SAVED.

[FROM OtTR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] NEW YORK. Sept. 18,

In a fork made by the upper roaches of the Colorado and the Rio Grande, high up in the foothills of the Rockies, the little mining town of Telluride. Its population is now only about a thousand. But, in the roaring days of the gold fever, quarter of a century ago, Tellurido was a thriving, populous city. The mines in its vicinity produced £11,000,000 in gold oros alone. A young man named Charles Waggoner arrived in Telluride from Nebraska. He got a job in the Bank of Telluride. Soon the townspeople began to call him "Buck." Those were busy days in Telluride. The camp boomed, new mines opened, eastern capitalists poured thousands of dollars into the town to develop claims. "Buck" met and knew them all. Soon he headed the bank and, as years rolled on, his influence increased and he formed an institution with deposits that ran to. £350,000 at its peak. The country around was rich in stockraising, as well as mining. Many of the stock-raisers, cattle men and miners, were aided by "Buck" in weathering financial storms. He had a reputation of having loaned more money to 1 men in distress than any country banker in the State of Colorado. A Desperate Plan.

The tide turned for Telluride. Mining slackened off. Optimism faded with the depression. The eastern capitalists withdrew their money. "Buck's" bank suffered in the depression, and. the burden fell on its depositors, many of.- whom faced the loss of their life's savings. "Buck" decided that something must be dono to save them. He thought out a plan, and put it into execution. ,

"I had been dealing with.the big New York banks for many years," said "Buck," in telling the story. " They all knew me. I decided they could more easily bear the loss than my poor depositors. I sent codgd telegrams, asking for credit for the Bank of Telluride, totalling half a million dollars. I went to New York and collected 490,000 dollars (nearly £100,000) in certified drafts. I" returned and paid off a big loan to another bank. They returned the collateral security."

"Buck's" depositors were now saved. There was nothing more to be done. He disappeared. Two or three days elapsed before Wall Street awoke to the fact that it had been the victim of an amazing, almost unbelievable, swindle. Warrants were taken out, and a week later Buck was arrested at a Wyoming tourist resort. . «< iam Glad it Is Over." "X am glad it is over," "Buck said, as he told the whole story. None knew of his scheme; he had no accomplices. "I expect to go to gaol for the rest of my life. The bottom had fallen out of things in Telluride and I felt that nothing but a desperate move was necessary and the only way out."

Waggoner is a spare, unprepossessing bespectacled, slightly bald man of 54 just a small-town business man. His confession amazed law officers by its clearness. When he face 3 his trial, one can expect the miners and cattle punchers of Colorado to be on hand with funds to see him through. No need for anyone to make him a hero. He is one already— Telluride's own.