CONFIDENCE MISPLACED

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3212, 4 August 1932, Page 6

CONFIDENCE MISPLACED

\ TRICKS OF TRICKSTERS.

Considering how sophisticated we all are, it is amazing that the confidence trickster can so often gelt away with the plunder he makes for, writes a Paris correspondent. How is it we are not all fully inoculated against wiles that have so frequently been given wide publicity in the press of every country? Yet here we have again—as last year!—an Australian visitor who falls a victim to the first plausible rogue he meeets in a Paris cafe. The rogue, Burton, an Englishman passing as an American, with the help of a confederate called Coates, induced Mr W. to draw £4O-, 000 from his bank and present it in a neat packet to the peir, on the pretext of operating in sterling on the Paris 1 Stock 9-lhey had the effrontery to declare to the victim three days later that the money had been lost, but could easily be recovered by a similar operation conducted #t Genoa. Mr W., who is a horse breeder from Sydney, accepted a railway ticket to that town, and, taking his luggage, drove to the station to meet the thieves and make the trip with them. It was at the station that the bubble burst, of course, neither kept that appointment, and Mr W. could but adjourn to the police commissary to tell the tale. The man, Burton, was identified among the photographs forming the "rogues' gallery" at the Prefecture, but the accomplice has not so far been recognised in the prints. And here is another victim of confidence in a simpler and commoner manifestion. Mr X. was accosted at Versailles by a well-dressed stranger, who offered to show him round the Chateau, The offer was accepted, and the visit was followed by an excellent lunch in a very good restaurant selected by the stranger. It passed off pleasantly, except that the guide greatly annoyed a lady at a tale near by by trying to force his attentions upon her. After the coffee, the guide vanished for a minute. He forgot to return, and Mr X. soon found that he had carried off his pocket book, containing £4O. There was nothing for it but to go to the police office, but alas, Mr X. frankly admitted that he should never recognise the man again. The lady, however, when consulted, declared should recognise him anywhere aft any time.

This episode took place in June, 1931. Quite recently the same lady lunched at . the same restaurant in Versailles, and saw that pickpocket walk in again. She telephoned at once to the police, who despatched two constables immediately, and the man was arrested. He proved to be a rambling rogue of Italian birth, with a passport available for use in any European city. As for Mr W. and his fortune, there is not much hope of retrieving it, and the two tricksters are doubtless by this time on the track of some other gullible millionaire in. Berlin or elsewhere. Mr W. bears his loss with admir)ab\e equanimity, but is disconcerted by the notority forced on him in the affair. He has changed his hotel, and takes steps to prevent his whereabouts being known, but he is probably safe from any further confidence tricks. It was in the Cafe de la Paix that he met Fate, in the person .of Burton. Reckoned in francs, that little encounter has cost him 4,000,000.