NAVVIES SWINDLED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 34

NAVVIES SWINDLED

BROMISED WORK ON CHANNEL TUNNEL DUPED BY PARIS GANG Ingenious swindlers have been using the proposals for the construction of the Channel Tunnel to deceive hundreds of ignorant navvies from various Central European countries, says the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Mail.” Posing as official agents recruiting labour for the tunnel, they demanded £lO to £ls sterling from each workman for registration and passport dues, and then gave them merely travellers’ passports entitling v them to stay In France for three mouths, but not to work. The victims were met in Paris by other members of the gang, who pretended to be indignant at the shabby trick played on the workmen, and extorted further sums for the alleged purpose of putting their papers in order. All the unfortunate workmen received, however, were cleverly forged working permits which, when shown to the police, caused their ownholders to be sent to prison. The police, however, have now discovered the fraud. The workmen, if they can find satisfactory guarantees, will be given working permits, and the members of the bogus immigration society and the “officials” who aided them are being sought for.