THE WILES OF THE SWINDLER.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9707, 17 March 1910, Page 6

THE WILES OF THE SWINDLER.

The modern criminal who makes a fine art of bis business has to adopt some very smart dodges, and many of these dodges quite outrival those to be fountain works of fiction. Take the case of an ingenious swindle by whioh a post office in Edinburgh was robbed of £35. A man with a out arm called at a druggist’s shop, which was used as a post office. In the course of a casual conversation with the druggist he mentioned that he was a telegraphist. One day he said he would like to send a message over the wire to the head office ; gwithout hesitation the unsuspecting snb-postmaater permitted the wire to be used. Then tha man coolly telegraphed to another Edinburgh snh-offioe authorising them to pay £35 to a certain name. He thanked the druggist for his courtesy and took a cab to the other office, where be duly got the money. The whole operation from beginning to end occupied under a quarter of an bour, and the matter did not come to light until some time afterwards, when the sub-post-master found a deficiency of £35 in bis returns.

BAOK-OODING TELEGRAMS. In another remarkable ■ ease ol ingenious swindling five men were concerned in connection with betting frauds by means of back-coded racing telegrams. When the men were brought to book it was explained that the case was a conspiracy, in which it was necessary to have a number.£of confederates. This is how worked. Two of the accused men visited suburban post offices, where an influx of telegrams involved considerable delay in the despatch of the messages. A third member worked an adjoining telephone, getting by that means the result of races within a couple of minutes of the winner pasing the ,nost. While the operator was engaged in sending off the messages No. 2 would enter the office and pretend to pick off the counter a postal order and two telegraph forms. He banded these to the assistant, and after making some trifling purchases he left. No. I immediately returned and inquired after his lost order and was shown the telegraph forms as well. These he said were part ofthe batch originally handed in. In some cases he was successful, and the belated telegrams were coded at times before the commencement of a race to which they related. Then, owing to the name of the winning horse having been ascertained over the telephone and inserted in the meantime, the bookmakers with whom the bets were made were defrauded. VICTIMISING BOOKMAKERS. Bookmakers are victimised in a large number of ways, including the use of chemical, inks which fade, with a mesasge previously invisible gradually takes the place [of the previous message. One of the simplest metbods, however, is worked in the following way. The swindler enters into arrangements with a bookmaker to back ‘horses through the post ; then be addresses a stout envelope to himself, taking care to write thejaddress in pencil which may be rubbed out easily. He posts the selladdressed envelope, taking care nut to seal it; accordingly the envelope reaches him with the post mark on the stamp bearing a certain time, of course. He rubs out [the address, and addresses the envelope in*ink to the bookmaker. Then he inserts the message backing a horse which has just won a race ; all that reamins 10 be done is to seal the envelope and to drop it into the bookmaker’s letter box. The bookmaker naturally thinks that the message has been delivered by the postal authorities in the usual way, phe post-mark being proof of the time of posting. By means of this very simple trick, a large number of London bookmakers have been swindled out of money amounting iu the aggregate to a prodigious sum. A curious institution in London is the “One Day Barmen Gang,” by which a very large number of publi. cane in London have been victimisedThe method in which this gang work is largely dependent upon false characters being given over the telephone. The members of the gang take situations as barmen, and then they abscond the next day with all the money that they can get. AUCTION SWINDLES. Very ingenious swindles are worked at auction rooms. Mr Justice Darling save that the grossest possible form of swindling is practised by a gang cf people who frequent the auction rooms For example he said that a . orse worth £IOO was put up, and only fetched £SO. It was knocked down because there was a ring of persons who go to sales and convert the auction into a perfect mockery. These people see a horse go for half Its value, then they go and say to the purchaser, “It is only because cf our dishonest complicity that you got this animal so cheap. Yon will have to nay us blackmail if you want to buy a*horse hare again.” Then he pays another £SO [to jphis gang of brigands “In fact,” Mr Justice Darling says, “These auction rooms are like Sherwood Forest iu the days of Robin Hood. ” INGENIOUSLY SIMPLE.

One of the most Impudent swindles imaginable, and one which appears to be quite novel in the history of crime, was committed in Glasgow. A conductor was in charge of an electric oar, when a man wearing the uniform of the tramway department boarded the car. This man abated that he had been |sent <0 relieve the conductor, and the latter believed the story. He handed over hia tickets, punch and cash, but when he got to the depot he discovered that the whole story was a concoction. The self-constituted con* elector remained on the car somewhere about ten minutes and- then disappeared. Ridiculously simple, also, was the device of a very resourceful thief at Bristol, and it was quite successful. A well dressed stranger entered a seed shop, and asked the women in attendance for a pennyworth of hiss, which is a fibre for binding plants. He especially requested that the bass should be tied up us tightly as possible, The woman did her best to T-HU his deaire, and in doing so got her fingers caught in the bass. The polite stranger pretended to assist her, but instead succeeded in getting ■two rings off her fingers. She was not aware of her loss until some time afterwards, when the thief had disappeared, of course.