DEXTEROUS SWINDLERS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 61, 10 May 1912, Page 2

DEXTEROUS SWINDLERS.

Profitable Plundering.

"Got-rich-quick" swindlers secured from their American victims during tlie past year £15,400,000, according to a Government report issued by Chiof-In-■pector Sharp, of the American Postal Department Investigating Department. Tbis sum represents the. earnings only Of swindlers who were caught, and does not include the amount obtained by the"get-rich-quick" men who remain undetected. Arrests during the year numbored G22. "Theso fraud manipulators," says Inspector Sharp's report, '"aro a distinct class of criminals, some moving in tho highest social and business circles, but nearly all have more or less affiliation to and connection with enterprises of an illegitimate character, in which thov aro known as promoters." Some of the schemes worked 4y the "got-rich-quick" operators instanced by Inspector Sharp are:—Selling' worthless mining and other stocks, bookmaking on "fake" horse races and athletic contests, selling cancelled postage stamps and Mexican money, selling rights to ii patent many times, obtaining money from alleged heirs to estates, selling interest in non-existent moving picture theatres, ''fake" trance mediums, selling divining rods to locate minerals, "fake" payments from relatives of dead persons for goods sujvposod to havo been ordered before death, and turf tipster schemes.