CLEVER FRAUD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20310, 21 May 1934, Page 5

CLEVER FRAUD.

Theft of Cases of Whisky and Cigarettes. MERCHANTS DUPED. (Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, May 20. Four or five of the prominent wine and spirit merchants in Auckland were the victims of a clever fraud perpetrated by a unknown man recently and were collectively robbed of about £l2O worth of whisky and cigarettes to the value of £SO. Each merchant, unaware that the others had also fallen victims of the clever swindler, kept the matter to himself for several days, but now that the story has leaked out they are chuckling over the easy manner in which they were duped. The .scheme adopted by the trickster was evidently the result of much thought and planning on his part. In the main, his method was to telephone the wine and spirit firm and announce that he was the nephew of a wellknown publican in the far north. “Jack wants three cases of whisky and three of beer,” he said ever the ’phone, mentioning the brands c f liquor desired “Send the beer tc the wharf for shipment. I am returning to-day by ear and 1 will take the whisky with me.” He also said he would take 40,000 cigarettes. as “Jack” was “out of smokes.” In each of three cases the mar, was given delivery of three cases of whisky and 40.000 cigarettes In a few days' time the hotelkeeper in the far north began tc receive by post invoices and accounts for whisky and cigarettes which he knew nothing of. It was only when the various firms received indignant letters of pro test from him, demanding to know why they had debited him with liquor that he had not received or ordered, that they realised that they had been -swindled. The beer was subsequently recovered intact, from the wharves where it had been stored.