TRICKED GERMAN CONSUL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 30 December 1915, Page 7

TRICKED GERMAN CONSUL.

BOGUS COUNT’S ADVENTURES. Further details are to hand regarding the man, Van Koolbergen, who, described as a civil engineer, has been cutting a brief figure in San Francisco society uder the alias of Count Dumanceau. According to his oavii admissions, published in the Providence “Journal,” he engaged himself to Herr von Brinken, the German attache in San Francisco, to undertake dynamite jobs in Caada. After surveying the difficulties of the task, he thought it best to communicate with the Canadian authorities, who approved of the idea of his taking up detective work against German intrigue. With the assistance of the railway authorities, bogus reports were published in the Press of a great tunnel accident in the Rockies. On the strength of these, and with corroboration by the Dutch Consul, he successfully worked the confidence trick on von Brinken, and mulcted the German Consul, Herr Frans Bopp, in sums exceeding a thousand dollars. The immigration authorities in the meantime investigated Van Kooibergen’s record. On returning to Canada ho was placed under detention as an udesirable.