AN OLD SWINDLE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 March 1933, Page 3

AN OLD SWINDLE

TWO MEN GET'GAOL TERM

A BOGUS “BANR’’.. COMPANY,

(Per Press Assu< .utjga Copyright.)

AUCKLAND, March .6,

“Now, this is on*. of. . the, oldest •swindles,” said the , Magistrate, Mr Hunt,, when sentencing japk aged 39, a labourer, to a yQar.’p.(,jjuiprisonment, and John- .McPherson, aged 22, a labourer, to three months’. ... . ~

McMillan was charged with imposing on an unemployed company niniiagivjr, uy representing that £4 17® 6d paid. ,>o .n>.n was the premium for a- fidelity bond covering his employment with “0Oppenheim, and Coy., Bankers, Auckland.” McPherson was charged wth vagrancy. ••

Willis George. Brain, company manager, said that when. he answered, an advertssemont for a chief cle-k at £.330, McMillan told him that the business was to b e a private bank. He was appointed and spent fourteen days inquiring in suburbs premises for use ars -branches of th*, bank. He thought. th e demand for a .fidelity bond was unusual, but he was s4ad fo get a position. •'/•' Ja-s. R. Ohristie, a buyer, who a l-° applied for. the chief clerkship, said that 'McMillan told him that it was. a b.ig company, and that he had been thinking about it.'for two -y?ai’s,. ; - Henry F; Oliffan unemployed accountant, said that McMillan told him that there were to he twenty-one branched of th e bank in the city, apd sivtv-nne in. tb.i-riuburbs.-' When he' paid the fidelity bond, McMillan could not gb-e him half a‘ c-Vowri changq• as. “the cashbox had riot>ome ’up.’’ Witness added that lie was still waiting for it to com e up.

A detective produced a list of about twenty persons engaged by, the gocaUed company. . The prosecutor pa d that McMilla i was an ihahitual criminal, released on liom* e on January 14. The Mairisfr-t? 'said that it was a heartless,svindie, as some of the vic-tim,s.h-d given, rri good j°bs, The police said . that. McPherson was also released from igaicdl on Jannarv 1L H° had launched a, chetni.eqi ronimny to be carried oh in ' conjtmet' on with the finuhuhmm Bank. ' and' h/d engaged about 40 m-s.n end,.hoys.. .