CONFIDENCE MEN

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1931, Page 2

CONFIDENCE MEN

FOOLED IN LONDON. BY NEW ZEALANDER. (United Press Association.—By Electrir Telegraph.---Copyright.)

LONDON, October 12. At least one visitor to London whom the confidence men failed to exploit is Mr Cuthbert Cowan, a New Zealand grazier, who visited Australia House where he met a well-dressed stranger, claiming to be a New Zealander, who said he previously had met Cowan at the Hotel Australia in Sydney. He invited Cowan to dine at the Carlton, where, after an expensive repast, a second “affluent New Zealander” invited them to a theatre party, where a “Canadian millionaire” arrived, and talked freely of easy money on giltedged securities. Mr Cowan’s acquaintances promised to a twcr.ty-.ive thousand pound deal, giving a prompt return of one hundred thousand. Mr Cowan, however, consulted Scotland Yard, where be learned that be had been hobnobbing with one of the cleverest Anglo-Continental gangs. Detectives then planned that Cowan should keep his appointment at an hotel, they hiding in a wardrobe to catch the gangsters red banded, but the crooks were warned by espionage, and they loft a message r or Cowan saying that the deal was “off.”