“TREASURES” IN PASTE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 18760, 26 December 1930, Page 6

“TREASURES” IN PASTE.

BUSINESS MAN DEFRAUDED. SWINDLERS SECURE £7OO. By clever employment of the confidence trick, allied to barefaced swindling, a successful man of business at Brighton, England, was persuaded lately to part with £7OO for a “box of diamonds” that were only worthless paste. Weeks of ceaseless pursuit that led the detectives from Brighton to Harrogate and thence to Birmingham, Plymouth, and Cardiff, preceded the arrest of Jacob Bercovitch, aged 53, described as a traveller. His alleged confederate, a younger man known as Vaseloff Smirnov, was still at liberty, and Bercovitch had to stand his trial alone for fraud by false pretences upon Mr Isidore Grunhaus, a fancy goods dealer. One morning in March, Bercovitch, a sallow-faced man of Jewish appearance, called on Mr Grunhaus, bought a cigarette holder, engaged in pleasant conversation, and eventually handed the shop-keeper a card bearing the words, “D. Grossman, tobacconist, wholesale and retail, Ontario.” Later Bercovitch visited Mr Grunhaus at his residence, the address of which he had got from the telephone directory. His reception was frigid. He had the bad taste to enter the drawing room with his hat on and Mrs Grunhaus bade her husband send him away. A few days later Smirnov appeared on the scene. He entered Mr Grunhaus shop and commenced a talk about toys, in which he professed to be interested. Smirnov was introduced by Mr Grunhaus to Bercovitch, and the couple acted as absolute strangers, Gradually, however, the plot developed. Smirnov spoke of a brother in Russia who had sent him furs for sale, and incidentally he produced a small box, removed the cover, and displayed some glittering stones. “These are not what I want to sell,’' he remarked. “I want to ‘sell the furs.” When he returned the stones to his pocket, Bercovitch showed anxiety lest a bargain should be lost, and suggested to Mr Grunhaus that they should ask to see the diamonds again, adding, “Perhaps we can buy them and go fifty-fifty.” The box was brought out once more, and Mr Grunhaus suggested that the jewels should be valued. Accordingly all three set out for a jeweller’s, and in their arrival, Smirnov handed Mr Grunhaus two stones from the box.

These were pronounced to be diamonds worth £IOO. A second appraiser considered they would be cheap at £SO, and on this valuation the 40 stones which the box contained were considered to be worth £2OOO.

SmirnOv intimated that he should want about £IOOO, and Bercovitch suggested to Mr Grunhaus that they should offer £700.. At this stage Smirnov agreed to sell, Bercovitch having previously prompted Mrs Grunhaus to persuade her husband to buy at the price, Mr Grauhaus sent his wife to the bank with a cheque for £7OO, and the notes received were handed over to Smirnov, Then arose the question of Bercovitch’s payment of half the purchase money. Bercovitch excused himself by saying he had not the money on him, but wrote a cablegram to a supposed relative in Canada asking for an advance, and also produced notes and cash to the value of £4O. Actually he gave Mr Grunhaus about £37. Thus the tr fractions was completed Smirnov pocketing the £7OO and Mr Grunhaus taking possession of the box with 40 unset, glittering “diamonds.” Then Smirnov and Bercovitch left by train for London to execute a fur transaction. That was the last seen of the confederates, and it was three months later before Bercovitch was traced to Cardiff and arrested. Mr Grunhaus, in the witness-box, related that after the departure of Bercovitch and Smirnov he concluded that it was advisable to have the box of diamonds, of which he as now the sole possessor, valued in its entirety, A local jeweller broke to him the unpleasant news that they were “very fine paste,” worth only a few shillings The two real diamonds had been ab* stracted and “dud” stones substituted.

Cross-examined by defending counsel, Mr Grunhaus remarked that Smirnov was dressed in clothes that might have led anybody to believe he was an archbishop or a captain. Telling counsel how Smirnov and Bercovitch both expressed their fondness for him Mr Grunhaus added: “King Canute could not have been more flattered by his courtiers than I was by these two. I was ‘a nice man,’ but I was daft ‘buttered,’ and mesmerised by them.” Mi's Grunhaus stated that when Bercovitch suggested the purchase of the jewels, Smirnov replied, “They are too holy, too precious. I could not part With them.” When Bercovitch was found

“guilty,” the police disclosed the history of prisoner. A Roumanian by birth, he had lived in Constantinople and Canada. He was granted a certificate of naturalisation, and, leaving Canada in 1901, went to Warsaw. In 1924 he was arrested in Berlin as a swindler, and absconded from bail. In 1925 he was arrested at Venice as a suspected pickpocket and expelled from the country. He had also been charged with loitering in a bank, and when he came to England, was given nine weeks’ imprisonment for loitering. “He was looked upon as an extremely clever criminal,” added the superin-* tendant, “an associate of confidence tricksters, and as a person known to have supplied international criminals with bogus passports.” The Recorder, Mr J. D. Cassels, K.C., having elicited that Bercovitch could not be deported, passed sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment with hard labour for “a very cunning swindle.”