“CONFIDENCE” MAN CAUGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22612, 2 July 1935, Page 10

“CONFIDENCE” MAN CAUGHT

STORY OF GREAT WEALTH Stated to have been the subject of a special police memorandum issued before the jubilee celebrations, a confidence trickster was at London Sessions sentenr.ed to three years’ penal servitude for stealing £IOO Irom Mr Rutger Josef van Huysteen, a South African civil .servant. He was Gerald Riviere, aged 40. Mr Beaufoi Moore, prosecuting, said that the case was notable for the simplicity of the victim, and the ingenuity of Riviere. Mr van Huysteen became acquainted with Riviere and another man, the latter saying that he had inherited £1,000,000 on condition that he distributed part of it to charities. Mr van Huysteen, as proof that he was a man of means and fit'to undertake tue distribution in South Africa, handed £IOO to Riviere and the other man. De-tective-inspector Street said that Riviere, who had 10 previous convictions, had written his criminal life history, but it had not yet been published. He (Inspector Street; believed that Riviere was a member of a notorious gang of confidei ce men It was the practice of confidence men to conceal themselves until their colonial victims had left the country, and then to flaunt themselves in front of the police. “ In this ci&e Riviere himself has been duprd He was under the impression that his victim bad left the United Kingdom when, in fact, he had not.”