£400,000 FRAUD

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 801, 23 October 1929, Page 11

£400,000 FRAUD

WOMAN FINANCIER IN GAOL GREAT PARIS SWINDLE It took many months for experts to agree on a shortage of £400,000 in the accounts of the half dozen allied corporations that closed their doors when Madame Marthe I-lanau, get-rich-quick woman financier, was arrested last December, says the Paris correspondent of a United States exchange. The liabilities are given in a 546-

page report as a little more than £1,400,000 and the assets as a bit more than £1,000,000. That takes into account £200,000 Madame Hanau had to her personal account. People had almost forgotten the affair that late last year stirred Parliament both as a matter of public interest and of politics, for there were charges that two Cabinet Ministers were involved. It turned out that Jean Hennessy, Minister of Agriculture, was one of those “mentioned” because he was the chief backer of tlie social organ, Le Quotidien, a paper of wide circulation which farmed out its financial page to the Hanau crowd aud published the “financial advice” that the Hanau high-pressure salesmen wrote.

Madame Hanau still is iu Saint Lazare Prison and many of her staff also are behind bars awaiting indictment. They have had hearings before the investigating magistrates but until the experts’ report had been digested the exact form of the charge could not he determined. The report alleges that Madame Hanau or her agents sold without authority many millions of francs worth of securities sent to her organisation by clients. Large profits were promised customers and many of these testified they were paid promptly.

Madame Hanau maintained her affairs were conducted honestly and that police action caused a shrinkage of assets, although she denied there was any deficit. The woman money-master owned her own office building and had the collaboration of many eminent persons in her principal newspaper, which was supposed to specialise in peace.