CONSPIRACY ALLEGATION

Taranaki Daily News, 21 September 1931, Page 11

CONSPIRACY ALLEGATION

TWO ARRESTS IN AUSTRALIA DEALINGS IN HIGH FINANCE.. LARGE SUMS OF MONEY INVOLVED. By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. - Sydney, Sept. 19. Phillip James Mond and Victor Cunningham, who were arrested on Friday on a charge of conspiracy after a long interrogation concerning the affairs of Ocean Investment Trustees Ltd. and the Britannia Bank Ltd. (a bank for Australia which was to have a capital of £100,000,000), were remanded to Tuesday on bail. The arrested men are charged with conspiring together to defraud shareholders of the Ocean Investment Trust Ltd. of large sums of money. Bail was fixed at £lOO each, Mond and Cunningham are chairman of directors and a director respectively of Imperial Sugar Industries Ltd. and the powers behind the flotation of three companies with a nominal capital aggregating over £120,000,000. Mond had arranged to sail on Tuesday for London where, the police had been informed, he intended to arrange the final details for financing these companies. Police action was taken following investigations over four months. The police allege that Philip James Mond, who is aged 42, is James Alexander Smythe, who registered his adoption of the former name at the Supreme Court, Auckland, and then travelled to Sydney in May last. The police also allege that Mond, or Smythe, is known to the New Zealand police as James Walkington Smythe, James Farquhar, Samuel Vance Houghton, Jones, Gibbs, Kane, Tom Barr, M. Preston, Maurice James, and Alexander Walkington Smythe.