SPY SYNDICATES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

SPY SYNDICATES

MONEY-MAKING SCHEME WORK FOR ANY POWER SEVEN HANGED IN POLAND Although the recent conviction of Dr. Goertz on a charge of espionage is the first of its kind in Britain for some time, no fewer than three hundred persons have been arrested for espionage offences annually during the past few years in the remainder of Europe, writes Lieutenant - Colonel Norman Thwaites, in the Yorkshire Weekly Post. At present there are numerous spy services in operation throughout Paris, Berlin and other great capitals. Britain, too, is riddled with 4 them. During the war there was constant trouble over the groups of secret service agents infesting various countries. To-day, the trouble is worse. At every turn we are over-run with them. Poland recently hanged seven Baltic spies. A few years ago, in Paris, Meller, Liogier and five other men were arrested for spying. The French military experts bad been experimenting with a new, quick-firing rifle, and the arrested gentlemen had taken rather too much interest in the proceedings. More than four nationalities were represented among the spies, but the authorities never discovered who had directed their activities. World-wide Development Recently, in Britain, the Government granted between sixty and seventy thousand pounds extra to the Secret Service. Throughout the whole world the Powers are rapidly developing their espionage systems. These men are just as active in peace time as in war time. Information about foreign army, navy and air force developments are invaluable, and several Powers will pay highly for information concerning new aircraft engines or machine guns. The very latest development of the individual spy system is what 1 will call spy syndicates. Apart from the normal agents regularly in the pay of every Power's secret service, there are now, rapidly spreading, these spy syndicates. They are formed essentially to make money from espionage work, and have already proved themselves extremely useful to certain European Powers. It is so much safer to employ an outside agency which, if trapped, can be completely repudiated, than to risk the life and reputation of one's own nationals. Soviet Russia has brought this traffic to a fine art. General Disappears A recent case involving a spy syndicate centred around an old Russian general who had formerly entertained members of the Corps Diplomatique in Paris, but was reduced to acting as doorman for a certain Embassy in Berlin. When a packet the military attache was expecting failed to arrive to time, he sent down to ask if the Russian general on the door had received it. There was no general on the door! He had vanished. And with him went the packet. It was impossible to call in the polico. The nature of the packet would make it extremely embarrassing if the German authorities should happen to break the seals. And although the old general was eventually traced to a villa, outside Berlin, it was many months before they found out who it was had bribed him to carry off the package. No espionage agent of any European Power was responsible, but another of these spy syndicates. Astounding Risks I have known several master spies. Men of the greatest polish and intellect who coolly took the ; most astounding risks, and carried out astonishing coups. One of the cleverest of these was Dr. Walter Scheele, a German. It was said that when the Kaiser was looking for a super-chemist in the days before the war, he consulted the Universities of Bonn, Berlin and Heidelberg, and Scheele's name came out on top of all three lists. For some time Dr. Scheele had something of a reputation in Brooklyn as an unusually capable chemist, who occasionally helped the police with their investigations. Under this respectable disguise, Dr. Scheele hid various nefarious activities. No fewer than 36 ships were burned at sea as a result of this man's work. Even the Lusitania nearly succumbed. Several bombs had been carefully placed on board, but a U-boat commander got busy before the incendiary "cigars" did their work. A year passed before the British at last managed to gather sufficient evidence to have Scheele arrested.