SPY SENSATION.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20233, 17 February 1934, Page 22 (Supplement)

SPY SENSATION.

AMAZING STORY TOLD. WOMEN 3 AMONG SUSPECTS. ALLEGED GANG IN PARIS. The eighteen arrests made in December in Paris, it is reported, were but the first open blow struck by the French •police at what they believe to be an international spy organisation of gigantic dimensions. Other arrests are said to be pending. The authorities attach the highest importance to the affair. Both sexes were represented among the prisoners, who are of British (Canadian), French, Polish, Russian, Rumanian and Serbian nationality. The story of the organisation, when unfolded, is expected to read like fiction, With the exception of the chief of the body none of its members was in touch with the other. The undertaking was not so much a closely connected network as a system of radial threads. These were held at one end by a single man, but the other extremities reached agents dotted about all over Europe, and even in French colonies, who were, for the most part, entirely ignorant even of one another’s existence. From what has become known it appears that the organisation was not the instrument of any one particular country. It was a huge business undertaking collecting military secrets wherever it could find them, and selling them to the purchasers who paid the highest prices. A section of the Paris Press stated, however, that most of the suspects were found in possession of papers indicating connections with the Russian Bolsheviks. The possibility that the enterprise was merely _ one of the secret organisations maintained always and everywhere by Moscow, both for espionage and a variety of other purposes, should not, therefore, be entirely left out of view. 300 Detectives At Work. The attention of the police is said to have been drawn to the operations of the organisation by information laid against one of the men now in custody, Robert Gordon Switz, a United States citizen of Russian origin. He was watched and found to be in regular communication with two Russians known to have been involved in an espionage affair in Finland. These Russians were also put under observation, but they escaped from France. By this time, however, the police had picked up further clues, and during the next eight months no fewer than 300 detectives were employed in tracing these both in France and other countries. The chief member of the group so far arrested is said to be a certain Benjamin Borcovitz. born in Rumania, but a naturalised Canadian, who styled himself a merchant. His wife, who was arrested with him, is also Rumanian by birth. She gave herself out as an artist. Borcovitz is alleged lay the police to have been the paymaster of the gang, and when he was arrested at his Paris home he had about £270 worth of franeß in his possession. An additional £IOO in paper money was found sewn up in the lining of his wife’s petticoat. Frontier Visits. Another of those arrested is a polyglot Russian woman who called herself “Madame Stahl,” and passed as a professor of languages. She knows most

European tongues, and her arrest is said to have cut short her inaugural experiences of Chinese. While under observation she repeatedly crossed the French frontier, Finland being her usual goal. The first arrests made were those of a young married couple named {Salman, of Polish nationality. They arrived from Germany eight months ago, and lived at small but comfortable hotels in the Boulevard de Charonne. Both pretended to be studying medicine. The husband did, in point of fact, attend the obstetric clinic of a hospital. Among the French suspects is a teacher of languages named Martin, who was on the Naval Ministry list of interpreters and translators. When the police arrived to arrest him he collapsed in a swoon. Another French suspect is Mile. Madeleine Mermet, an elementary school teacher in the “Red” Paris suburb of St. Oueu. She was found with her bags packed ready to leave the country. It is stated that the French suspects, in particular, belong to widely different classes of society.