FLORIDA LAND BOOM

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1927, 28 October 1926, Page 7

FLORIDA LAND BOOM

I-I'UGE FRAUDS ALLEGED. The glrand jury at Jacksonville, in Florida), recently found imlid.m’ents against forty men 'and women, officials of . two development companies, who, in their eagerness to sell '.’and during the giPcht boom, are alleged to have .vvcr-steppe'dl Idle fcsal line, and are now charged with conspiring to dcirau'd, states .the New York correspondlant of i;;he London Daily Telegraph). When Florida’s boom collapsed) last year like a priickbd bubble, investors throughout the United States lost millions of plounds, grea:t tlaiil'dlng and development, enterprises were aoandond in all stages of incompletion, and a hundred hanks failtai The extent to which Itlhe speculative fever gripped the country may be judged by the charges that one development company, whose officials aria: now indicted, was able to puff a land option originally lobtainled for £2O, into sales totalling £2,000,000 EuJford-tjyhthe-'Stea, julst north off Miami,, is the name of this remarkable development, and its remarkable and meteoric aislai Was paralleled by that of Arcadia Gardens, near Fort Myers, where investors invited to participate in a “sure thing” poured cash into (he company’s coffers, £600,000 being pledged for total payments of £1,300,000 According to the Better Business Bureau, Sit Petersburg, 'which investigated the matter, the- syndicate controlled only 4000 acres of chkap land, which formed the 'basis of an organisation ft '£looo', wJJ.h an actual amount .paid of 'only £6o(f. Advertisements appeared, it is alleged, representing that the company was a £3.000,000 concern, and its property sold! so fast that branch offices were opened in many large cities. The investors ficund later, it is alleged, that their property had never even l:f£ten surveyed.