KREUGER SENSATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21160, 18 April 1932, Page 9

KREUGER SENSATION.

ARREST OF DIRECTORS.

IRREGULARITY IN BOOKS.

MATCH KING'S AFFAIRS. SERIES OF ALLEGATIONS. FRAUDS AND FORGERIES. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received April ]7, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, April 16. Despatches from Stockholm state that the police arrested Lange, Huldt and Holm, three directors of the Kreuger and Toll firm, on charges of having assisted the late Ivar Kreuger to falsify the firm's books. The auditors' report states that the irregularities started in 1925. It is revealed that since 1928 Kreuger and Toll had issued shares and debentures to a value exceeding £50.000,000 — the Swedish Match Company shares, etc., to a value of nearly £25,000.000, and tho International' Match Corporation shares, etc., to a value of more than £20.000,000.

Tho Daily Telegraph says it is expected that the Swedish income tax will be increased at least 20 per cent, owing to the Government's losses on the lvreugcr concerns' taxes.

It is now stated definitely that Kreuger forged Italian Treasury bonds to the extent of £16,000,000. It has not been discovered what use ho made of them. Amazing Nature of Charges. According to the indictment against Lange, Hnldt and Holm they were merely " dummy" directors performing like automatons Kreuger's behests in concerns formed solely and fraudulently for tho transfer of funds. Other accusations in an amazing series of alleged frauds include a bogus bank, fictitious assets, a secret safe and forged documents. Lange was a director of the Garanta Company, of Holland. This was based mainly on what is alleged to have been a fictitious contract giving tho company the retail sale of matches in Poland. It is also alleged that a bogus match monopoly with Spain, in return for a loan of 180.000,000 pesetas, was found in Kreuger's room.

It is alleged that Huldt, at Kreuger's orders, founded a Dutch bank for the Scandinavian trade at Amsterdam which never did business, bub only kept fictitious books. Assets amounting to millions of pounds appeared in the balancesheet. Story of Italian State Bonds. It is further alleged that among the fictitious assets of Kreuger and Toll, of which company Holm was a director, was 35,000,000 Dutch florins in the Danzig International Bank which Kreuger started in 1931. In regard to the forgery of the Italian Treasury bonds the discovery is said to have been made from Kreuger and 101 l s documents that they were printed in Stockholm at an establishment to which Kreuger personally delivered the necessary copper plates, emphasising the imperativeness of secrecy. These plates were found in Kreuger's secret safe. It is believed that he intended to use the forged bonds to balance his 1931 accounts, in which connection he issued instructions just prior to his suicide.

Experts are alleged to have established the fact that 42 bonds, each for £500,000, printed in English, were forgeries.