“MODERN FAGIN.”

Western Star, 1 March 1938, Page 2

“MODERN FAGIN.”

- CRIMINALS FINANCED. FATAL THUMB-PRINT FOUND “This man is* rightjy regarded ag a modem Fagin. He has financed criminals and has been the medium through which stolen property hag been disposed.” . Detective-inspector Greeno, at the OH Bailey, London, applied this- description to Samuel Cohen, aged 33, warehouseman, who, .with Henry Fiertag, agedtJO, was convicted of receiving 30,406 postage stomps, valued at £472. It was alleged by the prosecution that that the stamps were part of a haul, valued at £6,800, stolen from post offices iu all parts of England. Mr G. G. Raphael, prosecuting, related that Cohen was seen in a car in which Fiertag was a passenger. Fiertag saw the police and a chase ensued, •

When the gong of the police car sounded Coh*n’s car accelerated. -It was however, jammed between two police car s and stopped. Cohen, when told his house would he searched,'replied, VYou don’t think I would be fool; enough to keep stamps there.”

The police later recovered an attache case containing a large quantity of stamps. In the case was. a cigarette tin bearing Cohen’s, thumb print. .... This print-is said to have sealed his room. In evidence Cohen declared he obtained some of the stamps from a man who came to his shop. Fiertag stated he bought Silver Jubilee and King Edward s tainps as a. speculation. Summing up, the Recorder, Mr Gerald Dodson, drew the jury’s attention to the fact that among the stamps found in the attache case were national health insurance stainps, unemployment stamps, stamps booklets, and postage rools.

- The jury, were more than an Hour and a-half considering their verdict. Afterwardg Detective-inspector Greeno related that Cohen, who was living with his wife at Maida Vale, had no convictions.

In 1929, the officer went on, the man took a shop at Edware road, Paddington, and carried on business as a tobacconist and supplier of toilet requisites. In 1933 removed to other premises in tb e same load. Bankruptcy proceedings instituted against him stood adjourned. s The officer went on to allege that Cohen had been disposing of other stolen property, and the Recorder asked, “Not only stamps?” “All sort s of property,” replied Inspector Greeno, adding that Cohen had been receiving stolen goods for the last y eight years. He bad been charged before.

“He is a constant associate of most active criminals, som© of whom have been mentioned in this particular case,” Inspector Greeno declared. Fiertag, the officer went on, was a single man with no convictions. He was a Polish citizen, bom at Warsaw’, and arrived in England in 1911. He had not beep naturalised. The police believed him to b© the dupe of Cohen, who had found customers for stamps and other stolen property, and had stored the goods. Sentencing Cohen to two years* imprisonment, the Recorder declared' he had not been sure whether or not he ought to he sentenced to penal servitude. Of Fiertag, whom lie sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, the Recorder observed it'was probably trim that hie was a subordinate, used by Cohen for his own purposes.