IFIRE RAISING GANG.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17159, 1 October 1923, Page 9

IFIRE RAISING GANG.

CAPTURED IN LONDON. CAUSED HUNDREDS OF fires. Cr Teleuraph—Press Aasociation—Copy rightAustralian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, September 20. A remarkable story of a gigantic incendiary organisation, described as the greatest ever known in Britain, lies be- ; hind the conviction, at the Old Bailey, i on charges -of arson, of three foreigners, j Joseph Englestein, who was sentenced ! to six rears’ imprisonment, Bernard Stolerman, who received five years, and ' Julius Brust, whose sentence was four J The convicted men arc all Shoreditch 1 cabinetmakers. Englestein. who is ( known to Scotland Yard as “ London's fire king,” is believed to have been I responsible, with the help of a syndi- ; cate which lie built around him, for I nearly 200 fires in the East End. The conviction of the men was brought about as the result of an ' anonymous communication regarding . an explosion on Stolerman's premises, j Englestein was boastful in the ex- j treme. He was .heard on a number'of occasions to declare that lie was unrivalled in cases of obtaining money from insurance firms. “ I have been setting fire to buildings for fifteen years.” he said. “It is dead easy. The stuff I use is never traced.” He levied a scale cf charges for the crimes, varying from £IOO for small businesses to £IOOO for large concerns. Englestein and his associates were tracked through the agency of two brothers* also East End cabinetmakers, j who suspected the gang and connected them with suspicious outbreaks in fur* niture-ma king establishments. They communicated their suspicions to the police, who discovered that Englestein was not only an incendiary, but also the prime mover in n plan to defraud the Commission which is awarding compensation to East End people whose property was destroyed by aerial bombing during the war. together with bogus robberies and other illegal methods of obtaining insurance. It is estimated that London insurance offices have been defrauded of £250.000 as a result of Engles tein’s plots, since 1920.