CONFIDENCE TRICK

Hokitika Guardian, 28 July 1933, Page 7

CONFIDENCE TRICK

MAN LOSES £15,000

SWINDLER CHEATS GANG. A £15,()liO fraud, engineered by a gang of international sw.-ndlers, who sent man across from the United States to find a victim, was described at the Old Bailey, in London, recently. Cnmuel Maurice Adesska, aged 36, a showman and an American! citizen.

pleaded guilty to obtaining £15,000 by false pretences l'rom Mr Frank J. Belirle, a decorator in New Jersey. He was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude and recommended for deportation. The offence was stated to havebeen committed in London in 1930. Mr 'Gerald Dods.wf, prosecuting cqtmtjcl, said Mr Belirle met Adesska whop in a liner from New Jersey to Hamburg. They staged at the same hotel at Hamburg and then went to Municli. There Adesska purported to find a- wallet in which was a membership card of the International Brokerage Exchange, a society which did not exist-. It- was made out to Frank Thompson, and when Mr Belirle 1 and Adesska took the wallet to Thompson, he was overjoyed at the return of the wallet.

The men met again in London, -when Thompson called on Adesska and Mr Belirle and said he had £50,000 from his Wall Street firm to invest in radio stock, and that he had .doubled the capital, and insisted on Mr Behrle having a half of it as a reward for finding the wallet-, Adesska was to have the other £25,000,

Adesska disappeared, purporting to purchase £30,000 worth of radio shares, and when he returned it was said that they had made £50,000, and all that remained was to collect the money. Adesska legt to get it, but when he came back he said that the manager of the "International Brokerage Exchange” wanted to he satisfied that the three persons were really worth £50,000. Adesska said he had £16,000, Mr Behrle produced £15,400, and Thompson said he would put up the rest .

Adesska took the three envelopes in which the money was supposed to be enclosed and went out. When he returned he said he' had invested the money in shares and lost it. . Adesska said he was going to Glasgow to try and get the money, and Thompson said he was going, to Rome. Air Belirle was going to Rome with him, but when lie got on the train lie found that Thompson was missing. . Two years later Adesska was arrested at an hotel in

the Rocky Mountains. Counsel added that Adesska was a member of an international, gang and was paid by a man who had since died £3OO to. travel,,i^ ..tjie find,. a,, victim. Mr Behrle had- travelled at his own expense to this country to give evidence, because he wanted to, save other people from the same kind of bitter experience. It was stated that Adesska did not hand over all the money he got from Mr Behrle. He has cheated the cheaters, for ho put £BOOO into his own pocket ,