SWINDLING GANG’S SYSTEM IS DISCLOSED

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1935, Page 12

SWINDLING GANG’S SYSTEM IS DISCLOSED

Coups Of £45,000 And £36,000 By Inventor Of “Pay Off”

REMARKABLE disclosures of the operations of a gang of international swindlers, some members of which were recently put under arrest in Paris, have beep made to the “Daily Mail.” They come from a former member of the gang, y an Irishman, now in London. Himself, a former convict, he makes no secret of his association with the gang and the part he played in its operations. In the company of a man who a few years ago was acquitted of a murder charge in England, this Irishman talked freely about his late associates and airily referred to death in the electric chair which awaited one of them if he etfer returned to the United States. "The Paris ‘cops,’ ” he went on, “have certainly made a big haul, for they have got a man who to my certain knowledge has stolen at least £250,000 from various people in the last few years.

“I know that that sum sounds fantastic, but it’s true. . ” “He started this wholesale robbery, in 1923 with a coup of £45,000 from an Australian squatter. Then he got £36,000 from a man from the West Indies, and he has had three or four Sums of £ 10,000 or more from people in England, to say nothing of similar coups in other countries. “He is a genius at the game. He invented what we ‘con.’ men call the ‘pay off.’ ; “It concerns the persuasion of likely ‘cans’ to become interested in stock and share deals on a mythical exchange", and is worked by a chief who is known in our language as ‘the player,’ who has the assistance of two or three ‘steers,’ as the men are called who find likely victims for him. “ ‘Jake,’ we will call him, was always ‘the player,’ and I was one of his ‘steers.’ It was while acting in this capacity for him that I got a lucky six months’ imprisonment at

Margate. I had picked up a likely ‘can’ for him— a very rich Finn. “I found him at the zoo, and by the usual methods got into conversation with him and then planted a wallet containing a real £lOO note, a member’s badge for the Exchange, and various other documents, including newspaper cuttings telling about a mysterious Stock Exchange operator who had been making huge sums, and giving his photograph. “There were also letters to a Mr Blank, addressed to a London hotel, purporting to be from a powerful commercial firm in New York, complaining about the publicity he had bben gettfng in his stock deals. “All the papers are faked, including the newspaper cuttings, which are specially printed for us by a printer we know. We have to pay very heavily for these ‘cuttings,’ as the boss has to do them himself after his men have left off work. The ‘steer’ arranges that the ‘can’ finds the wallet and gets into communication with the owner, and then ‘the player’ takes a hand. “ ‘Jake’ for the purpose of the ‘pay off’ used to take a suite of rooms at an exclusive hotel for two or three days and it was there we used to get the ‘can’ interested. “Out of gratitude for /he return of his wallet and documents the ‘player’ consents to let the ‘can’ and the ‘steer’ who is handling him, in on a big trade on the exchange but insists, so that his principals shall not know,' that the transaction be carried out in the name of the ‘steer.’

“This is done and a huge profit is made, but the officials of the exchange, who are, of course, ‘Jake’s’ men, suddenly interfere and agree that while the trade has been- carried through they have no knowledge of the person who has carried it out and if the trade has gone the other way they would have lost, say, £30,000. “Can it be shown that if the man had lost he would have been able io pay? If he can, all well and good; his huge profit of £150,000 will be paid over. “Then, although both the ‘steer’ and the ‘player’ give evidence that they have plenty of funds, they are all unaccountably tied up and. are not immediately available. Then it is that the assistance of the ‘can’ is asked, care having first been taken that he has got the money. In nine cases out of 10 he puts up the money and that’s the end of the matter; he never sees it again. “ ‘Jake’ has worked this trick over and over again and has got away withit. “It was when we were trying to do the Finn I have mentioned for £30,000 that Scotland Yard got after us and I was arrested at Margate and given six months, much to the astonishment of the ‘can’ who thought I was a very fine fellow.”