AUSTRALIAN CRIMINALS

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 8 March 1921, Page 36

AUSTRALIAN CRIMINALS

lIOW THE “CON MEN” WORK. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, February 2. The crime wave shows no sign of abate ment. There have been several more serious shootings in and about Sydney, some amounting to murder. Hand in hand with the disregard for human life, there is a disregard for the rights of property. Thofi was never so common or swindlers anc rogues so active. “Con r .en ” —confidence men —have beer very busy lately. There must be some truth in the old saving that a fool is borr every minute, for the public never seem: to learn, and every week someone or othei is robbed by old and transparent tricks. The -most common is that of getting possession of notes with a promise to return with gold These tricksters work in gangs on the steamers, and seek persons who are going abroad. Only a few sovereigns are issuer to travellers now, so everyone wants go’d. The rogues strike up an acquaintance with someone who looks easy and display a hand ftti of gold. They have got this, they say by some secret channel, and they can get plenty more. The victim’s cupidity is promptly aroused. lie is conducted through some streets, asked to wait in a doorway while the obliging one slips inside with the notes—and, of course, he never conies back. It is no exaggeration to say that scores of people were tricked in this way during the past year—yet the list keeps on growing. There are gangs -who travel regularly or the trains. They get into a compartment with a likely looking gentlemen. One ol the gang will start the three card trick, or something of the kind, and behave a; if he were not quite sane, but had plenty of money. The others will win considerable sums from him. and then the victim will be invited to participate in the good thing. People are such egotists that this method seldom misses. There are other gangs who sell things to credulous people who come wandering about with money. They are humorists', these roseate, in a way. Quite often they have sold country travellers the footwarmers and water bottles out, of trains. A man wandering about at the Zoo mot an affable stranger, who took him to see the Japanese fish, and sold him one for £5. He went away to get a jar to put it in—and. of course, never came back. A man on a .steamer passing through Sydney went ashore with two apparently wealthy Sydney men. ’They took him up George street, and showed him the hmre building known ns Queen Victoria Markets. They offered to sell the block to him at a low price, and he accepted and paid them £l5O deposit. ( hie man went inside to g-ct- a receipt, and presently thp other went to see what had become of him. Neither returned. The police searched industriously, but, they made a clean get-away. But the persons most bully “stung” often refuse to report the occurrence to the police.