CONFIDENCE TRICK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21552, 25 July 1933, Page 13

CONFIDENCE TRICK

MAN LOSES £15,000 SWINDLER CHEATS GANG THREE YEARS* IMPRISONMENT „ A £15,000 fraud, engineered by a gang of international swindlers, who Sent a man across from tho United States to find a victim, was described at the Old Bailey, in London, recently. Samuel Manrico Adesska, aged .'SO, a showman and an American citizen, pleaded guilty to obtaining £15,000 by false pretences from Mr. Frank J. Behrle, a decorator in New Jersey. Ho was sentenced to three years' penal servitude and recommended for deportation. Tho offenco was stated to have been committed in London in 1930. Mr. Gerald Dodson, prosecuting counsel, said Mr. Behrlo met Adesska when in a liner from New Jersey to Hamburg. They stayed at tho samo hotel at Hamburg and then went to Munich. There Adesska purported to find a wallet in which was a membership card of tho International Brokerago Exchange, a society which did not exist. It was made out to Frank Thompson, and when Mr. Behrlo and Adesska took the wallet to Thompson, he was overjoyed at tho return of the wallet. The men met again in London, when Thompson called on Adesska and Mr. Behrle and said he had £50,000 from his Wall Street firm to invest in radio stock, and ihat ho had doubled the capital, and insisted on Mr. Behrle having a half of it as a reward for finding tho wallet. Adesska was to have tho other £25,000. Adesska disappeared, purporting to purchase £50,000 worth of radio shares, and when he returned it was said that they had made £50,000, and all that remained was to collect the money. Adesska left to get it, but when ho came back he said that the manager of the "International Brokerage Exchange" wanted to be satisfied that the three persons were really worth £50,000. Adesska said ho had £IO,OOO, Mr. Behrle produced £15,400, and Thompson said he would put up the rest. Adesska took the three envelopes in which the money was supposed to bo enclosed and went out. When ho returned ho said he had invested tho money in shares and lost it. Adesska said lie was going to Glasgow to try and get the money, and Thompson said he was going to Romo. Mr. Behrle was going to Home with him, but when he got on the train he found that Thompson was missing. Two years later Adesska was arrested ft an hotel in the Kocky Mountains. Counsel added that Adesska was a member of an international gang and was. paid by a man who had since died £3OO to travel in tho ship and find a victim. Mr. Behrle had travelled at his own expense to this country to givo evidence, because he wanted to save other people from the samo kind of bitter experience. It was stated that Adesska did not hand over all the money he got from Mr. Behrle. He had cheated the cheaters, for ho put £BOOO into his own pocket.