£40,000 A YEAR OUT OF GUN-RUNNING

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 151, 22 March 1939, Page 15

£40,000 A YEAR OUT OF GUN-RUNNING

Adventurous Career

JAIL SENTENCE FOR SWINDLING

Ship’s steward, ammunition maker, racehorse owner, self-styled oil "king,” and general in the Mexican Army—such is the melodramatie life story of Dennis Michael Corrigan, Mayfair gun-runner now in jail for two years. Sentenced at the Old Bailey for an arms cargo swindle, this twinklingeyed man of 53 with tin Irish-American accent has mystified the police of many countries, writes Arthur Tletjen in the “Daily Mail.” Detective-Inspector Stevens, of Scotland Yard, told the Court that Corrigan boasted that he had been employed in arms deals which brought him £40,000 a year. Certainly, with an 11-guineas-a-we.ek Park Lane flat, a private secretary, and a valet, this plausible and clever schemer talked “gun-running” to many people anxious to make money quickly. Tln-ee Passports. Corrigan seems to have been the only person who benefited. He was the brain behind a great arms deal for China. A freighter left London docks with 550 packing cases which should have contained anti-tank guns and cartridges. One of the cases broke open at Marseilles-— the lot were found to contain bricks and refuse. This was the swindle for which he was sentenced.

For years Corrigan has travelled the Continent mixed up with shady deals. His place of birth, his parents, and his real identity, have always been a riddle. He has said he was born at Matrade—which does not exist —and, further, Montreal and Fermoy, Ireland. Yet he held two British passports and one Irish Free State passport.

Up to 1927 Cassidy was his name, but he changed it -by deed-poll to Corrigan.

A master of bluff, he is known by the police in this country to have obtained over £100,009. He went bankrupt in 1933—he was then the owner of a string of 27 racehorses —with liabilities of nearly £109,000.

Yet Corrigan lived in luxury, talked big, gambled for high stakes at Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes, plunged heavily on horse racing, which is estimated to have cost him. at least £30,000. £BO,OOO Coup. It was Corrigan’s second appearance in the dock at the Old Bailey. His first was iu 1930, when he was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude for fraudulent conversion.

In that case he induced the public to give him money to buy shares, and obtained a sum of £BO,OOO. With a humble beginning—that of a second-grade steward on board ship— Corrigan in 1916 married a Miss Prowse, at Romford, but deserted her five years later. During the war lie was employed as a munition worker at Woolwich Arsenal aud later went to the Ministry of Munitions, after w'hich his name was often prefaced with “Major.” From 1921 onward he boasted of exploits in Mexico and became “General” Corrigan of the Mexican Army. His fertile fancy invented the possession of wonderful oil concessions in Mexico. All he wanted was a revolution in Mexico, and he would benefit by £250,000. The revolution came, but his promises never materialized. Poverty to Riches. When Inis stock of stories ran low he disappeared, and would return, ‘down at heel, to mingle with people who had befriended him. Once again he spread tales of how easy it was to make money by speculation: once again lie duped those who had put their trust in him.

And so he reappeared in the public eye as a prosperous racehorse owner in Belgium, who also rented stables at Worthy Down, Hants. Then came his five-years’ sentence, but Corrigan cropped up again when, in 1936, he again caught the limelight with a story of a great aeroplane deal for Austria, to the value of nearly £1,000,000. Last year he was fined for aiding and abetting a Frenchman who had been refused admission to land in this country. Successful as he was at moneymaking, Corrigan was even more successful with women. He was a genial and extravagant host, often entertained at well-known restaurants.

He moved freely in theatrical circles, and could rank among his friends many successful actresses.