CAREER OF SWINDLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23685, 17 December 1938, Page 15

CAREER OF SWINDLING

BANKRUPT FIRM'S PRESIDENT AN AMERICAN SUGGESTION

(United - Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, Dec. 15. (Received Dec. 17, at 0.15' a.m.) A sensation was caused when the police identified F. Donald Coster, president of McKesson and Bobbins, who had been arrested in ■ connection with alleged fraudulent withdrawals of 18,000,000 dollars from the concern's assets, as Philip Musica. He was the central figure in the famed "human hair" swindle 25 years ago. Musica was convicted in 1913 of a 2,000,000-dollar swindle involving the United States Hair Company. Musica received a suspended sentence after assisting the authorities in tracing the losses. Similarity in the methods of Coster and Musica caused the revelation and recalled incidents in one of the most amazing American swindle episodes. Musica was also convicted earlier in his career of swindling the Government by. means of false weights when, with his father, he had a large cheese importing business. He was also convicted of subornation of a perjury in connection with a murder. His "Who's Who" biography, written by himself as Coster, gave him a fictitious Heidelberg doctorate of philosophy and showed him to be a member of the most fash-? ionable clubs and one of the most prominent members of the New York financial community. Actually he was the son of an immigrant Italian barber. The Federal Government is now investigating Coster's activities in connection with vast illegal sales of arms to South America and possibly Spain. All were shipped in McKesson and Robbins boxes/ marked " Milk and Magnesia." The bankruptcy of McKesson and Robbins, one of the largest drig and chemical firms of America, is expected to have an adverse effect on the business world. The market value of the stocks of the firm, whose assets were alleged to be 87,000,000 dollar's, dropped 30,000,000 dollars in the course of a few days on the Stock Exchange. A stockholder's suit alleging fraudulent listing of assets amounting to 10,000,000 dollars, precipitated an. investigation disclosing many irregularities, including a warehouse allegedly maintained by the company, in Canada, the only mailing address being New York,