DEATH IN GAOL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22167, 22 July 1935, Page 9

DEATH IN GAOL

NOTORIOUS FRENCHWOMAN FORMER FRAUDS RECALLED PARIS. July 39 Following upon an attempt to commit suicide Madame Hanau, who was involved in the infamous Gazette du Franc scandal of 1930, which ruined thousands of people, died in the infirmary of Fresnes gaol. She was 50 years of age. After serving successive terms of imprisonment deceased had occupied a carpeted, book-lined cell like a lawyer s office, in the Sante prison, from which a lady's maid, by duping two warders, assisted her to escape from a window by means of knotted blankets. Later she gave herself up. The governor dismissed the warders and placed Madame Hanau in the cell once occupied by the spy Mata Hari Though hunger strikes and a motor accident impaired her health, Madame Hanau founded two financial papers while on bail. Her last sentence was one of three years, imposed in 1934. Her divorced husband and ex-partner, M. Bloch, died last year.

Madame Hanau and her chief partner and former husband, Lazore Bloch, were arrested in December, 1928, on a charge of fraudulently obtaining money for investment in the various financial concerns connected with the Gazette du Franc, a weekly financial review. Inquiry suggested that the Gazette du Franc had been founded for the purpose of persuading the general public to entrust their savings to these concerns, and that very large sums had been in this way obtained bv Madame Hanau and her associates. The trial was delaved for some time by the illness of Madame Hanau, who went on hungerstrike in 1930 during her custody in prison: She was eventually sentenced in March, 1931. to two years' imprisonment and fined £24. But, as her detention had lasted 16i months she had only months to serve. Against this sentence she appealed. No sooner was Madame Hanau at liberty pending the hearing of her appeal than she started a new bank and new periodicals. Ecoutez Moi and Forces, in which she made violent attacks on the big Paris banks. These attacks, however, suddenly ceased for some reason. In a special service connected with Forces, which she called "berets of the Gods," she gave market tips. These included circulars tending to "bear" certain stocks. One falsely announced that- Sir Henri Deterding, of the Royal Dutch Petroleum _ Company, had disappeared and was being sought bv the British intelligence service. The result was a slump in the shares.

In April, 1932. the woman was rearrested and all copies of Forces were seized. She was accused of baring stolen a secret police report about herself from the office of the Finance Minister, M. Flandin. and of having published it. Madame Hanau denied the theft., declaring that there had "simply been a leakage at police headquarters, and asserted that she was being persecuted hr the Government, the police and the banks. The Premier. M. Tardieu, conferred with the Minister of Justice, the Police Prefect. M. Chinppe. and officials of the Ministries of Justice and Finance. It was decided to proceed against Madame Hanau for illicit market operations—an offence punishable with imprisonment up to three rears and a line not exceeding £Bo °- ' , u Madame Hanau was also to be charged with the theft and publication of a secret document and with insulting a magistrate. The trial, however, was postponed from month to month aiti meanwhile her periodicals and her financial operations went on as before. It was not until the Stavisky scandal aroused public indignation that it was recalled that the Hanau case had never been dealt with. Eventually, in June. 1934, she was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 3000 francs, while her former confederate, Bloeh, was given eight months and a similar fee. In March. 1934, her paper Ecoutez Moi had been.seized by the police because it contained a scandalous article on the Prince of Wales.