CONSPIRACY CASE

Evening Star, Issue 19661, 14 September 1927, Page 10

CONSPIRACY CASE

BANKNOTES IN SALMON. A disclosure that money lor the payment of members of tho (Russian Volunteer Fleet was sent to Paris in parcels of smoked salmon was made at tho Old Bailey in London recently, when, after a trial which lasted seven days, Alexander Gabriel Sokololf, aged thirty-six, a financial agent, and William James Alulcastcr Bell, aged thirtynine, an accountant, were found guilty of conspiring to obtain valuable securities, shares, and largo sums of money from the London Steamship and Trading Corporation, Ltd. Tho common sergeant sentenced Sokoloff to twenty months’ imprisonment in tho second division. Bell was bound over. Air Pcrcival Clarke, prosecuting, said that the business of tho London Steamship and Trading Corporation, which was registered in 1920, with a nominal capital of £25,000, was to charter ships for the .Russian Volunteer Fleet. Bell was appointed secretary and Sokoloff manager. In 1923 a meeting of directors expressed disapproval of the way the two men had conducted th.c affairs of tho company. Sokoloff was dismissed and Bell left "

Sokoloff was made bankrupt, and the company made claims against him amounting to £35,975. The claim was founded on hook entries of payments of commission to a man named Sotoff, which, it was alleged, were false and fraudulent. Sotoff was a Russian who. after fighting in the White Army against the (Bolsheviks, wont to England in 1920 as iv refugee. Ho was. asked to sign a number of receipt forms in blank, which were afterwards filled in for thousands of pounds by Sokoloff and Bell. All Sotoff received was from £2 to £3 a week. Solokoff, in the witness box, said that he came to England from Russia in 1915, and was engaged in obtaining munitions for the Russian army. The London Steamship and Trading Corporation was formed to take over ships from tho Russian Volunteer Fleet, and ho collected largo sums from various Governments on commission.

Largo payments were made to members of the Russian Volunteer Fleet, which could not he shown in the hooks for fear of causing trouble between tlie “Whites” and the “Reds.” Solokoff said that on one occasion two parcels of smoked salmon were sent to members in Paris, and each parcel contained £4OO in banknotes, in addition to a pound of salmon.