BAIT FOR UNWARY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 253, 6 August 1937, Page 8

BAIT FOR UNWARY

TREASURE TROVE TRICKS. SPANISH AND PIRATE HOARDS Many causes have combined during recent times to give impetus to a particular form of trickery (writes G. R. Miller in the “Weekly Telegraph”). The absence of gold currency and the Spanish war are two factors which lend themselves ready-made to the treasure trickster, and in many countries there have been modern variations of the old “treasure swindle,” whereby people with more money than discretion ha,ve been induced to buy sovereigns which after the handing .over of good cash turned out to be brass checks, or to invest in gold ingots which by simple manoeuvring on the part of the confederates changed into bars of lead. Everybody should be on guard against treasure tricksters. Doctors, clergymen, retired shopkeepers, spinsters and even lawyers fall the readiest victims to the treasure tricksters. Although there are many variations of the trick, which is dressed up to suit the occasion or to fit. in with topical events, the modus operandi is always much the same. The tricksters have a quantity of gold hidden away somewhere, but for reasons of their own, they are not able to sell it in the normal way to ai bullion-broker; therefore, they are willing to dispose of it below market price. The victim sees a chance of making a quick profit—and falls. Sometimes The tricksters know of the whereabouts of a treasure—nowadays it is hidden somewhere in Spain, from 1919 onward for a few years it was hidden in the devastated areas of France of Flanders—and they require a few hundreds to “bribe officials,” and for various expenses. In the hoary old “Spanish Prisoner” trick they need a fairly substantial sum to bribe the governor of a prison to allow the prisoner to escape. As soon as the latter is free he will dig up the treasure and give his generous helper half. Even the treasure which is said to lie in the sunken Lusitania has been used by this kind of trickster as bait. On one occasion, a spinster handed over £SOO, and very nearly added a cheque for £IOOO in' response to tljp appeal of a self-styled salvage expert who wanted to buy apparatus and diving-gear to bring up the treasure. There seems to be no limit to the nerve of the treasure trickster, and many of those who follow this “profession” consider any bait under a million sterling beneath their dignity. For some years there was a man going round Europe proclaiming himself as a spy who betrayed Port Arthur to the Japanese during the RussoJapanese War. The reward of betrayal was £7,000,000, and on the strength of forged Japanese documents this man actually raised loans amounting to £400,000 in various parts of Europe. Pirate’s treasure has not infrequently been the bait. The trickster has a chart, or definite information about the locality in which, say, Captain Kidd’s treasure is hidden, and 1 requires five or six hundred pounds to equip an expedition. In return, he will sign away half of all lie finds, which “cannot be less than two millions.”