HOAXED A GENERAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 746, 20 August 1929, Page 2

HOAXED A GENERAL

ARCH-IMPOSTER’S SUICIDE AMAZING CAREER Suicide has ended the career o£ 0t o Stephaue. who was known throughout Europe, under the name o£ Otto da Beney, as one of the most amazing imposters of modern times. he Beney, who recently threw himself from the roof of a Brussels hotand died later in hospital, had crowds into his 29 years of life as much siventure, honest and dishonest, al would fill a couple of novels. When the European war broke cede Beney was 13i years of age, but he insisted on following the Belgian army as a Boy Scout, and was late; cited in army orders for his conrai* and exemplary conduct. He began his career of crime in' mediately after the war, when hn sole object in life seamed to be don brilliant uniforms, prey on gur lible people and bilk hotel proprietor*. Posing as the “Duke of Devueren. he “decorated” in the name of tbs King of the Belgians General Allen, then commanding the American AnW of Occupation in Germany. Once be attached himself to tta Inter-Allied Military Control Commix sion as a French officer, and later a?j peared as “Captain Lord Ashton" ’■ the British Navy. He also pretended to be Prate Charles of Belgium, committed frauct on the Sultan of Turkey, and once passed himself off as private Becr» tary to Trotsky, the ex-Russian Commissar for War. ' It is not long since he published E> Reminiscences, in which he caile himself “the modern Villon” —a nam to which he probably thought m* poetry entitled him. De Beney’s exploits were not - fined to the other side of the Chana In 1922, wearing the uniform ol major in the Belgian air service, called at Buckingham Palace said he had come to interview Duke of York. Despite his powers and confident manner ■ cion was aroused, and when it found that his papers were f° r ? e , jnJ . was sentenced to three months prisonment and ordered to t>« ported. ,t In 1927 he was back again an- , Crewe was sentenced to nine in imprisonment for defrauding * ia , man and for disobej'ing the o P” tion order. jj He served repeated s ? n . len other countries for obtaining! by false pretences, passing at d je . times as the son of M. M s. urlc -« e iioii. terlinck, the nephew of Mr- - tll6 the United States Secretary , Treasury, and the nephew Cardinal. s» While posing as “Lord As“..ion 1° pretended that he was on a■ fl ,r purchase a villa on the Ri' l sa |d the Prince of Wales, and it that while in the occupied of Germany he obtained * oa ? 400 officers of the British ail can forces.