“HIDDEN MILLIONS”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 200, 27 August 1935, Page 11

“HIDDEN MILLIONS”

FORGED FINNISH SEAL Allegations that he forged tho seal of the Finnish Government in connection with a claim to an estate of £4,000,000 in Latvia and Finland, in which he was to have a share, were made at Leeds when Harry Mendelsohn, 35, appeared on seventeen charges of false pretences, forgery, and uttering forged certificates, says the Daily Telegraph. Mr. Louis Godlove, prosecuting, said two years ago there was considerable publicity about Mendelsohn and several other people being entitled, as a result of a Chancery action in England, io a share in several millions of pounds which had been hidden in Latvia and Finland by a relative who had died there. Mendelsohn told Miss Marv Jane Noble, insurance agent, of Enfield Street, Leeds, that a trust had been formed to press his claim. He also said, it was alleged, that investments were required for the trust, and produced a book of printed certificates on which it was set out that the trustees agreed to repay ten guineas for every pound invested, and if the claim failed they would repay tho money. | Miss Noble gave Mendelsohn £25 land £175, for which she received two i certificates. j Mr. Godlove said the prosecution ' was not in a position to prove that the millions did not exist, but could prove that the throe signatures on the certificates purporting to be those of the other trustees were forgeries, and that the only genuine one was Mendelsohn’s own. It was alleged that on a similar pretence. accused obtained £llB from three other people. All the witnesses would say that the accused showed them documents purporting to relate to the claim, bearing what looked like the sea of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. The police had found in his sion a stamp and die made to impress a. seal, bearing the coat of arms of the Finnish Government, and an envelope bearing an imitation of the Finnish Official Seal. The prosecution alleged that he had made these himself, with the object of inspiring confidence. Mr. Hjeke Hjelt, an attache to the Finnish Legation in London, stated that the emblem of a seal en a letter, which Mendelsohn represented as having recei'ed from the Finnish Farren Minister, resembled that of the Ministry. but the wording was misspelt.