FICTITIOUS FORTUNES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20318, 28 January 1928, Page 19

FICTITIOUS FORTUNES.

FOREIGN OFFICE WARNING. The Foreign Office recently issued the following statement: — In 1925 the Foreign Office issued a warning to the public against paying fees to lawyers or other persons in the hope of establishing claims to certain alleged estates in the United States, namely, the Webber, Edwards, and Bogardus estates. The alleged Webber millions appear to be fictitious.- Any claim to the Edwards estate would almost inevitably be unsuccessful owing to the long possession of the present holders and the lapses that have occured in the title, while an American attorney was disbarred in September, 1917, for soliciting contributions to finance an investigation in to the Bogardus estate, knowing there was no chance of success. It is now necessary to add a similar warning in the case of the alleged Crawford millions estate. This estate was supposed to be worth about £5,000,000. Various persons who claim to be descendants of an Andrew Crawford, who died a considerable number of years ago in Ireland, have communicated with British consular officers in the hope of establishing a inquiries have been made into the matter, and have failed to elicit any satisfactory information that ouch an estate exists.