LUGGAGE FRAUDS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20801, 21 August 1929, Page 12

LUGGAGE FRAUDS.

MANY TOURISTS DUPED. A very extensive fraud on. the Paris, .Lyons, and Mediterranean Railway Company m connection with the registration of luggage has just been disclosed—or. rattier, some of those alleged to he impl- a ted have just been tracked down. The existence of the system of fraud has been suspected for sonic time. It was operated principally on the journey between Marseilles and London; and was dependent on collaboration .between railway' employees and unscrupulous interpreters. . • , An interpreter would explain to a passenger with a-large quantity of luggage that this would, in the ordinary course cost 500 francs (£4), but that Tf h e cared to give a tip of 100 francs tlie matter could he arranged for 200 francs, ima meant a saving of a couple of hundrecl francs to the passenger/ while the 100 francs would be divided among dishonest participants who had devised an elaborate system of falsification of lugTwo railway employeis and three tourist agency men were lately arrested. , This sort of thing has, it is said, been going on for four years, and the extent to which the railway company has been robbed is to be gathered' from the confession of one of its servants. He said tnat his share of the plunder during that period was 40.000 francs (£320).