COINS WORTH £70,000 IN BLAZING CAR

Chronicle (Levin), 9 April 1947, Page 8

COINS WORTH £70,000 IN BLAZING CAR

LONDON. Sovereigns and other gold co.ins worth £70,000 were found stuffed in the cushions of a sports car which caughi fire at Yincennes, just outside Paris. - The 23-year-old owner of the car was examining its mechanism in a garage and held a cigarette lighter too close. He c-alled the lire brigade. The firemen tore away the burning uphplstery and on to the garage floor i"ppured..,a (tptai ;of 300Q, sovereigns and go'lden Ewiss 20-franc pieces. Stowed under a smouldering rug heneath the car's back seaf were 90 cylinders with 50 gold coins in each. The firemen called the police, for it is believed the nioney may be connected with the black market in curreney. Other Coins Seized Detectives have also sei/.ed £25,000 worth of gold coins and bank notes, includiilg 305 British sovereigns and £170 in British bank notes in the house of a Paris warehouse owner. He had an appointment with two accomplices and arrived just in time to see tlie police lead them away. Frightened, he dropped Ihe sackfui of golden Hwiss coins h6 was carrying into a drain and hurried to hts hide-out, a gloomy little fli.t in liue des Plantes T1 re the police found liim — -liis aceompliees having talked — and he ad n.itted having a luxtirious flat in Boule vard Easpail, where he rec.eived his black' market clients. Illegal deals in gold mushroomed after the liberation of Paris. Sovereigns bought clieap in the ba zaars of the Middle East are smuggled through Italy and Switzerland to Eranee Where speculators buy them at fantastic pric.es.