A SUCCESSFUL SWINDLER.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 138, 16 July 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

A SUCCESSFUL SWINDLER.

A brilliant career of swindling came to an abrupt termination before the Correctional Tribunal at Paris recently, A young man named Louvard, whose social aspirations were far in advance of his means, started with a fortune of rather less than £3OOO. With money he launches out in hazardous speculations on the Bourse, aud finally hit upon a system of wholesale swindling which placed immense sums at his command. Louvard, working on the credulity of Turkish bondholders, obtained vast quantities of Ottoman scrip on the promise of paying the bonds ofl at par in six months, anil 10 per cent interest in the meantime. Of others money, promising to buy French Three per Cents at 62f iD Loudon which they could sell there at 80f. The possession of money Was not his only ambition, for, after amassing a considerable sum, he took the title of Count Lovvard de Pontlevoye, and hired a magnificent suite of rooms. Here the sham count began to lead the life of a grand seigneur, spending about £(>000 a year. After some time the attentions of his clients became rather too pressing, and a new subterfuge was necessary to hide the hollowness of his resources. Accordingly he announced himself as the natural sou of a prince of one of the greatest families in France,laud asserted that his father had agreed to allow him 120,000 f a year. The crash was, however, not long in coming. Unable to continue paying tbe interest on the bonds, he was at last recognised as a common swindler aud arrested, his attairs showing a deficit of £30,000, being the amount which he had spent in luxury and extravagance of the most reckless kind. The Court sentenced the prisoner to thirteen months’ imprisonment.