CRASH OF GREAT FIRM

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 138, 25 January 1939, Page 4

CRASH OF GREAT FIRM

NEW YORK SENSATION AMAZING DISCLOSURES NEW IDENTITIES ESTABLISHED VANCOUVER, Dec. IS—United States Government G-men caught- up to-day with Frank Donald Coster, alias, Philip ALu.si.ca, but lie- put a bullet through his head rather than submit t-o- arrest, in his handsome residence in the suburbs of New York. A week agoi Wall Street was shaken by the sudden, failure of one of the greatest drug and chemical firms in America. When police traced down the shortages of more than £5,000,000, they encountered! one of , the strangest crime stories ever heard in America, involving large-scale illicit- activities from bootlegging to. rum-running. Several highly-placed politicians in New York and New Jersey are being interrogated by police on their connections with the weird activities. Robert Dietrich toi-day joined George Arthur, one of the company’s executives, in gacl. Arthur was arrested at gunpoint after half an hour’s siege of his Brooklyn’s, home.

In his faked identity papers. Coster had given tile site- of the Supreme Court as his birthplace. Police are- seeking to discover whether or- net they were partners, with guilty knowledge, or were merely dupes of Coster and his two enterprising brothers. What uncovered Coster was the smashing failure of AlcKceson, Robbins and -Co., long regarded as • a multi-million dollar firm. It had been in successful business for 105 years.

- : t-s a . -pAy. Typisp Cayg ijLeatf.j; v . . The first the company Started tliisie ; months ago, when stores showed that thp..fifni’s products were below standard. * - The investigators \ thunderstruck toi find that a firm ■ of’ that reliability should He 'marketing spurious articles, and quietly itattbd-'inquiries. They found a smart stenographer naniifcfeT.fMeiiiiorif*Lockc. She told detectives' thaiFshe had long known that Coster audi' two of his executives must bo brothers.

It took a careful, search to find where; the> business had been looted. Tell-Tale Prints. The investigator found on its books entries showing many millions of dollars’ worth of crude drugs, stated to be housed in Canadian stores • but ;these actually were non-existent. Hurriedly trying to fix the blame for the evident looting of the great firm from the inside-, the detectives required all company executives to furnish their finger-prints. Within two- hours, the* president (Coster) and liis manager and two assistants were identified as members of a family who perpetrated a swindle running into £250,000 more than 20 years ago.

The curtain turns back three decades. Philip Musica and liis two brothers—the Amazing Musicas they were called at that time—were young Italian immigrants, sons of a barber. Smuggled Cheese. They had made a. modest- fortune before 1910 in the business of smuggling fancy cheese from Italy and Switzerland. They wanted to* broaden their operations, soi went- to the. banks and borrowed £250,000 on the security of shipments of human hair which they were importing from Europe. In 1912 it became known as the “human hair scandal,” for the banks found only rubbish in great packages which were supposed to contain hair worth £2 10s per lb. The Musica brothers and their partners served short terms in prison and were supposed after that to have been deported to. Italy. Nobody heard of them * again until last week.

What really happened was that in South America they - profited sufficiently to get a new start, and several years ago returned to New York, bought shares, and secured control of the famous solid old drug house of Mclveeson, Robbins. Munition* Ship Seized. Then they proceeded cautiously, through queer international deals that might have made £62,000,000 if bad luck had: not dogged them in the past 15 months. The Musica brothers took out new fraudulent birth certificates to* wipe out any possible history of their eld crime and established new identities. Philip Mtisica became Frank Coster. His two brothers became George Dietrich and Robert Dietrich. Their streak of bad luck started when they outfitted the munitions ship. Mar Cantabrico.. which was captured tw 0 years ago by Spanish rebels trying to run tliei blockade into loyalist Spain. Several years ago; Coster visited Bolivia, gave a huge sum for a. quinine monopoly, and offered to finance the purchase of American guns in Bolivia’s war with Paraguay over the Gran Chaco. His company also operated on large-scale illicit alcohol and narcotics. using the* good reputation of the company earned: in earlier years, to cloak the illegal acts.