CONFIDENCE MEN FAIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 243, 14 October 1931, Page 7

CONFIDENCE MEN FAIL

NEW ZEALANDER IN LONDON GANGSTERS AVOID A TRAP Received Oct. 13, 10.5 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 12. At least one visitor to London, whom confidence men failed to exploit is Cuthbert Cowan, a New Zealand grazier, who visited Australia House, where he met a well-dressed stranger claiming that he, too, was a New Zealander, who said he had previously met Cowan at Hotel Australia, Sydney. He invited Cowan to dine at the Carlton, where, after an expensive repast, a second affluent New Zealander invited them to a theatre party, whore a Canadian “millionaire” arrived and talked freely of easy money on gilt-edgeds. Cowan’s acquaintances promised to let him in on a £25,000 deal, giving a prompt return of £lOO,OOO. Cowan, however, consulted Scotland Yard, where he learned that he had been hobnobbing with one of the cleverest Anglo-Continental gangs. Detectives planned that Cowan should keep his appointment at the hotel. They were to hide m a wardrobe and catch the gangsters red-handed, but the crooks were warned by espionage and left a message for Cowan saying that the deal was off.