INSURANCE FRAUDS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 708, 8 March 1933, Page 1

INSURANCE FRAUDS.

Thirteen Persons Charged with Conspiracy. INC EX DIARIST'S CONFESSION. United Press Assn. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received March 8, 11 a.m.) LONDON, March 7. “ I set fire to it,” was the confession which an Italian named Capsoni made three times in reply to questions from the prosecution as to how fires in Manchester and Leeds started. Behind this case an incendiarism conspiracy that has existed since 1925, backed by a central organisation which has secured an amount running into six figures, is alleged against eleven men and a woman, who were charged at Bow Street with conspiring to defraud insurance companies. A twelfth man. Vincent Cope, was charged with setting fire to a warehouse at Wembley. Counsel intimated that other arrests were likely. The prosecution, when outlining the several cases, alleged that Leopold Louis Harris, an assessor, headed the organisation. He, with the other accused, started companies and financed businesses in London and other place-*. He filled the premises with junk and effected insurances for grotesque sums and, when fires occurred, presented-in-flated claims. In one instance the invoices were fabricated. The prosecution said that Capsoni and his wife claimed to have started five fires. They were not accused but would be witnesses. Capsoni claimed to be deep in the organisation's plans, and the prosecution was using him as “an instrument of justice.” They had paid him £5 a week for six months, but relied on him only when his evidence was corroborated by discoveries during the two years during which the investigations had be- n going on. . Counsel added that it was learned that Harris had six businesses burned in three years and had put at least £30,000 in his pocket. Accused were remanded on bail aggregating £95,500.