BAYANO OIL SWINDLE

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12021, 26 December 1924, Page 9

BAYANO OIL SWINDLE

,ARJR;EtST OF LEO KORETZ. CHICAGO, November 2G. Leo Koretz, who swindled various investors of £1,000,000 sterling, and then disappeared, might still be free if he had exchanged his fine clothing far somebody's overalls at the first opportunity. Koreiz absconded laist- December with half the proceeds of his frauds, end ten months later was pleasantly established in Halifax, living at the best clubs, and the owner of a fine estate. Bui he had an inquisitive tailor, who found on the label on his coat collar a name that woe not Korotz's. The tailor told Lis banker, who earned a £2GOQ reward. Koretz will face the court in connection with the groat Bayano oil swindle. In his prospectus he do scribed a wonderful estate in Panama. Fiom t-lio investments of fresh victims he paid dividends to old ones.. A committee fin-ally insisted on personally visiting his Panama plantations, and about the time they arrived, to find hfra-t they did not exist. Koretz faded from view only to be betrayed by his coat’s tell-tale label. Leo Koretz, head of the ‘‘Bayanc Trust, of Parua ma,” who was accused of swindling many wealthy Chicago people, fled from Chicago to Honduras by aeroplane last December. Before leaving, .he distributed £105,000 among; his family, who later volunteered to hand 1 the money to the police to assist the swindled people.- Koretz operated fox several years, and was believed to have swindled his victims of £l, 00,000 through investments in fraudulent oil eonroanies.