BOGUS POLICE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19315, 4 May 1937, Page 5

BOGUS POLICE

PARIS GOLD FRAUD COUNT ARRESTED PARTS, March 3. Count. Dogino de St. Maurice has been arrested i'or alleged fraud following an alleged swindle by which two Paris brokers were recently deprived of £(1250. One of the men responsible is said to be an international bandit known to the French police, who come to France from America and went to London on February 26. Count St. Maurice declares that he was a victim of the fraud. It is stated that a meeting was arranged between the agent of a man who said thai he had £BOOO worth of gold ingots to soil and two, broker;-. Such dealing in gold is illicit. When theso men got into a taxi to go to an assayer's they were stopped by four, men, who showed police papers. They took the gold and the money intended to pay for it, and said one of the men would be charged with illicit gold trafficking. After these alleged policemen had gone off inquiries were made, and it was found that the police knew nothing of the matter.

allegedly by a Government aeroplane, was formerly the Alfonso XIII, and was renamed aftor the revolution. She was one of the largest vessels in the Spanish fleet, a sister ship to the Jaime I, of 15,000 tons displacement, 450 ft. long, and 78ft. beam, with a draught, of 25$ft, engines capable of 10.5 knots, and armed with eight 12in., twenty 4in., and five lighter guns. She was completed in 1916. She disappeared from "Brassey" some years ago and apparently was laid up at the time of the outbreak of the rebellion.

PLEAS BY WOMEN

AIRMEN'S LIVES SAVED FRENCHMAN AND GERMAN ST. JEAN DEi LUZ, April 23. The lives of two airmen, one with the rebels and one with the Government, were saved by the pleas of women when they were captured by their respective enemies.

The German ace, Captain Friedrich Schmidt, w.ho was fighting for the rebels, descended by parachute within the Basque Government's lines. Captain Jean Pelletier, of Bayonne, was op board the Spanish Government's trawler Balerna when it. was. captured by the rebels. Both prisoners were awaiting courtmartial, with the inevitable death sentence, when Schmidt's mother and Pelletier's wife pleaded for mercy. Agents from both sides arranged that the prisoners should be exchanged at St. Jeaji (le Luz'and their lives spared. Both men are now free to return to Spain to fight against one another if thev wish.