A BIG COMMERCIAL SWINDLE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 138, 20 September 1910, Page 4

A BIG COMMERCIAL SWINDLE.

We are occasionally permitted an interesting examination of the dishonest methods adopted by some American commercial men, and the stories of how some of the "get-rich-quick" people do so are tales of wicked ingenuity that could not be surpassed in fiction. The other day we were told by cablegram that a superintendent of an\American refinery had been sent to gaol for two years and fined five thousand dollars for conspiring to defraud the Government. How these criminals manage is shown in the case of Oliver Spitzer, a dock superintendent employed' by the Sugar Trust in New York. Spitzer -was promised release from gaol by President Taft on condition that he would "give the show away." • This witness said that he had been in- the- employ of the Sugar Trust for thirty, years and that the frauds had been in operation for twenty-six years. At that time the first device for deceiving the Government as to the weight of sugar was to hang a bag of shot on the scale lever. This underweighed each bag eighteen pounds. This simple method operated with perfect success for twenty years. Then an inquisitive Government inspector interfered and'had the arms ofi the machines boxed in so that the shot could not be hung on them. "Then," said the witness, "we experimented again and again to find a new device for underweighing, and finally hit upon the scheme of a secret spring fixed to the scales. This spring was fixed by Sugar Trust employees in such a way that the bags were underweighed bv many pounds, and the Government defrauded of millions of dollars in Customs duties on sugar imports." "Did you arrange a system of signal lights in the scale-house to give warning of the approach of danger suddenly?" asked the prosecutor. "Yes, sir," replied iSpitzer, unabashed. "We installed red electric lights so that we could signal jthe checkers when necessary. They Were worked from a switch m my office." 'Spitzer added that he and the checkers were paid regularly until his conviction. After the raid on the sugar docks in November, 1907, some of the checkers, said Spitzer, asked if they would lose their jobs, but Garbracht, then the Sugar Trust cashier, told him to say that the checkers would 'be cared for, 'and," he added, "I also ■understood that T should not be abandoned."