GANG OF 200 SPIES

Taranaki Daily News, 20 April 1935, Page 7

GANG OF 200 SPIES

DETECTION IN FRANCE BIG EUROPEAN BUSINESS RUSSIA main purchaser SENTENCES FOR LEADERS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 8.30 p.m. Paris, April 18. The international spy gang, 10 members of which were sentenced yesterday, is stated to have conducted a regular business, selling military secrets to the highest bidder. The chief revenue was from Russia but important documents, it is understood, have been -old to Germany. The gang is said to have employed 200 persons throughout Europe. More than 300 detectives worked for a year to unravel the network. The British intelligence service ontributed largely to the detection of toe gang.

Among the documents believed to have been betrayed is the whole scheme of industrial mobilisation of the Paris district and the text of secret lectures in toe French ■ ilitary Academy. Sentences totalling 32 „_..rs and fines amounting to 18,000 fr... ;s were imposed on 10 . the persons convicted. Madame Salman and Mlle. Mermet were each sentenced to three years and Mrs. Lydia Stahl, an American, and Dumoulin to five years. Robert'Switz, an American aviator, and Mrs. Switz, who were found guilty, were released because they turned State’s evidence. It is understood they will be obliged to return to America. Dumoulin’s wife screamed and collapsed when her husoanu was sentenced. Professor Martin, an Admiralty officer, will be re-tried, as he refused to plead. He was accused of betraying secrets i hile fascinated . . Mrs. otahl. Two babies born in prison appeared in toe dock with toe 21 alleged spies whose trial opened in camera on March 25. They were toe children of the Polish medical student, Salman, and -a French school tectoer, Madeleine Mermet. With toe Americans lurs. Lydia Stahl, and the aviator Robert Switz and his b- utiful Britisn-born wife, the Pole and French women were accused of membership of toe gang which was allged to be operating on behalf of Russia and Germany in toe United States, France and Britain.

The court over-ruled a demand that the proceedings should be quashed owing to the Franco-Soviet rapprochement. Switz, confirming his previous confession, declared that he entered toe gang in order to denounce it.

An angry crowd confronted Mrs. Switz when she was released and followed her in cars and cabs to her lawyer’s flat where she narrowly escaped toe mob, says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Express. s She said afterwards: “I think I vent into the affair for excitement. I am now completely cured.” Her husband said he took up espionage three years ago because he was tired of doing nothing.