WHITE SLAVE PLOT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 671, 25 October 1933, Page 2

WHITE SLAVE PLOT

BRITISH CIVIL SERVANT BELIEVED INVOLVED IN PLOT. POLICE ACTION. Paris, Seutember 15. Designed t0 aSsist thd importation into Ehgland of French girls, a larger organisation for the forgery of marriage certificates and other documents has hcen discovered hy the French pojice. It is alleged that an employee of a British' Government department was actively concerned in the plot. He is stated to have given guidance to the conspirators regarding technical details of the certificates. Other English people are also said to be implicated. The police have no doubt that this huge conspiracy is the reply of the underworld to Scotland Yard's crusade against the practice of providing English "husbands" for undesirahle ' women from the Continent. These "husbands" went through a ceremony of marriage which endowed • the women with British names and a spurious British nationality that was of great assistance in facilitating their residence in Great Britain. These revelations follow the arrest in Paris of a man named Ernest Vi1 , tellier, whom the police declare to he a notorious white slave trafficker. He is accused of taking an active part ' in the conspiracy. : , The police state that a number of forged marriage certificates were found in this man's possession. These had been very cleverly prepared, but having been examined hy experts from London, who made a special trip to Paris for the purpose, , they have been proved to be forgeries. . The police apparently have been just in time to prevent* a wider development of this ingenious organisation. Vitellier is stated to have given th'e ' names of a number of people, (both . English and French, who, he alleged, : have taken part in the scheme.