INTERNATIONAL SPIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21758, 24 March 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

INTERNATIONAL SPIES

GANG BROKEN UP ACTIVITIES OF A WOMAN Eighteen members of a dangerous gang of international spies, led by a woman known as " La Belle Sophie, have been dealt with by the courts in the Strasbourg region. "La Belle Sophie," otherwise Mine. Sihela Dresd, has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and her husband, Joseph Dresd, to five years. Alphonse Choppe, a N.C.O. in the French Army, received five years' imprisonment; Georges Lander, n native of the Saar region, three years; and Gustav Weber, a German subject, one year. Shorter sentences were inflicted on 13 others. " La Belle Sophie " and her husband opened a cai'e in the St. Avoid region, and this, the authorities declared, existed only as a rendezvous for soldiers and government officials who had been corrupted in order to furnish information concerning the French frontier defences. Dresd was expelled some time ago, but his wife carried on, and it was her activities in " vamping " soldiers that brought her to the notice of the authorities. She is alleged to have induced Choppe to steal from a local barracks a specimen of a new type of light machine-gun for use with the cavalry. The two were speeding across the frontier in a car, with the gun hidden under the cushions, when they were stopped by guards. " La Belle Sophie " denied all knowledge of the gun at first, but later tried to brazen it out, declaring that, as a patriotic German, she was entitled to serve her country in any way possible. It was stated that the woman and her husband had made frequent visits to England in quest of information about national defences and secret processes. After the arrests had been made a courier from England arrived at the cafe and was detained, but as the information in his possession was not about France, he was merely deported. Some of the men in custody were said to have had in their possession a quantity of classified information relating to English submarines, aeroplanes, gas and chemical products, and tanks. One of the ngmes figuring repeatedly in the dossier was that Obst, the same as that which figured in the case of Lieutenant Baillie-Stewart, and it was suggested for the prosecution that this was the name of the director of the Secret Service Bureau in Berlin, with whom the agents wore in touch. " La Belle Sophie " had been under Observation for two years after the deportation of her husband, and complete records of all telephone communications passing to and from the cafe had been taken down by dictaphones specially placed by the post office for this purpose. .