"SPANISH PRISONER”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 302, 22 December 1933, Page 8

"SPANISH PRISONER”

MILLIONAIRE FUGITIVE. STORY OF DRAMATIC ESCAPE. Many years ago a confidence trickster invented the tale of a Spanish prisoner of great wealth as a means of extorting money. To-day, the story has come true, and is told by the prisoner himself, one of the richest men in Europe, who has recently escaped under the most dramatic circumstances. Senor Don Juan March, the millionaire royalist, a sick man, after 18 months' confinement in a Spanish prison, according to the Sunday Graphic, reached Gibraltar on November 4. Senor March had hoped that th® Spanish authoiities would set him free. “This did not happen,” ho said, “and therefore, I was disillusioned and tried tx> escape. I succeeded in convincing the adjutant of the prison, who told me the ill-treatment to which I had been subjected prompted him to help me. Senor Vargas let me out of the prison and a ear was awaiting me 500 yards up the road from the gaol. Owing to my failing health and the ill-treatment which I had suffered in prison, I was unable to walk. The gaoler, Senor Vargas, helped me to reuch the car and then expressed his willingness to accompany me, saying that he was a great admirer of mine.” The escaped man was wearing prison uniform trousers, which he changed on reaching Gibraltar. He succeeded in passing the frontier gates without being recognised or challenged by the Spanish authorities. The future plans of the escaped man were at the time undecided. From Madrid came word that the Ministers announced that they would apply to the British Government for the man’s extradition.