MYTHICAL MILLIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 February 1933, Page 8

MYTHICAL MILLIONS

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE’S' “ESTATE.” EXPORSURE OF SWINDLE. The United States’ Government has barred the use of the mails to a number of men said to be collecting subscriptions to help 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 fliers is no unsettled estate that has come down from Drake. The information is a little late for thousands of expectant Americans, who have, during the past ten years 1 , contributed 1,300,000 dollars (about £200,000 at par) 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 13-ritish Government in exploding the myth thafi( a £1,000,000,000 estate, accrued from Drake’s so-called privateering operations, was to he 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 the eventual division of the proceeds. Evidence gathered by Federal investigators in dictated l that the funds already contributed had gone to an American, wlio\ bad operated for a time in the United States and later launched a renewed campaign of solicitation from London, through agents.