CRIMINAL'S AMAZING CAREER.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12757, 1 April 1910, Page 1

CRIMINAL'S AMAZING CAREER.

■ One of the cleverest swindlers i" the- world has just been prevented ' from carrying out a gigantic fraud ill connection with an ' £8,000,000 railway scheme in Chili, says "Lloyd's Weekly," in which several well known British financiers are involved. Harry Silverberg has had an extraordinary career, and has brought off a good many big coups, but none so big as that in which he has just been circumvented. Some time- ago ha appeared in South America, and though' apparently unknown to more prominent commercial men there, iio managed "during his travels to secure valuable concessions: At length he was appointed to an influential administrative position in connection with the. Chilian, railway scheme mentioned above. The undertaking progressed well for some time, until the promoters received news which aroused their suspicions respecting the man's, conduct. I The- American lawyer who is acting as counsel for the syndicate in ! America was instructed to investi- • gate- the conduct of the business in i Chili, and in consequence of what j he learned he communicated with , the police in New York. By their aid the ex-convict's portrait was discovered in the famous Rogues' Gallery, where it appeared over the name of "Harry Silverberg." Meanwhile Silverberg had disappeared, and it . was only after a search lasting several weeks that ho was tracked to London. He appeared to have the entree to several important 'clubs.* Again lie vanished. Nobody knows where he has gone, but no efforts are to be spared to arrest him now that the failure of his scheme is assured. Exalted personages have succumbed to the wiles of this clever swindler, who seems to have had an unusually good tinio, and to have moved in the best of society wherever he went. He speaks six or seven languages fluently, and, in addition to accomplishments iunumerable, seems j to he blessed with an inexhaustabio j fund of good humour in adversity. | "The cheeriest, most versatile* i scamp that I ever came into contact ! with," is the description of him given by ex-Inspector McCarthy, late of Scotland lard, who was able to give to be blessed with- an inexhaustible esting account of some of Silverberg's performances.