FARMER ROBBED OF £1200 BY TRICK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 17, 12 September 1931, Page 3

FARMER ROBBED OF £1200 BY TRICK

GLA5SWORKS SCHEME FOUR MEN PROPOSE PLAN TO MAKE LARGE PROFIT ON SECTIONS O CASH CHEQUE AND VANISH AUCKLAND, Friday. It is understood the Auckland police are endeavouring to trace a gang of four men who ars alleged to have swindled a North Auckland farmer of £1200 by a confidence trick. The men became friendly with the farmer at Helensville, and subsequently two of them visited his farm near Whangarei, and informed him that a company intended to establish glassworks in Ponsonby, Auckland. The company still had to buy four sections to complete the site for the works, and the men proposed that they and the farmer should buy the sections for £4000 and then sell them to the company at aprofit. Later the two men returned with a third, and another whom, the farmer understood was a representative of the glassworks company. The farmer refused to put up £4000 to buy the sections, but eventually agreed to find £1200. The alleged representative of the company wrote a cheque for £5400 for the sections and handed it to the farmer who responded with his own cheque for £1200. While two men remained with the farmer, the two others took a car to Dargaville, cashed the cheque, and that was the last the farmer heard of his £1200 or the glassworks. It is understood the men for whom the police are seeking have left New Zealand.