MYTHICAL MILLIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 37, 14 February 1933, Page 3

MYTHICAL MILLIONS

OFFICIAL EXPOSURE

USE-OF MAILS BARRED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, IStti January. The United States Government has barred the. use of the mails to a number of men said to be collecting subscriptions to -. help to recover mythical millions of the estate of Sir Francis Drake, who died 357 years ago. The authorities are, considering prosecution. It is officially announced that there is no unsettled estate that has como down from Drake.' The information is a.little late for thousands of expectant Americans, who have, during the past ten years, contributed 1,300,000 dollars to this huge ■ swindle. This action is the direct result of long investigation and diplomatic correspondence, in which the State Department at Washington" requested the co-operation of the British Government in exploding the myth that a 5,000,000,000-dollar estate, accrued from Drake's so-called privateering operations, was to be recovered. Representations to the contributors, whether they had a shadowy claim to descent from the famous navigator or not, were that they would share in tho eventual division of the proceeds. Evidence gathered by Federal investigators indicated that the funds already contributed had gone to an American, who had operated for a time in the United States and later launched a renewed campaign of solicitation from London, through agents in this country.