SPANISH PRISONER SWINDLE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 313, 1 July 1912, Page 6

SPANISH PRISONER SWINDLE

MB. WILFORD'S INVESTIGATION.

"While in Madrid," said Mr. T. M. Wilford on Monday to a Wellington Times reporter ,"I made it my business to investigate the Spanish prisoner swindle that has now a world-wide clientele. I called on Sir Maurice de Bunsen, British Ambassador at Madrid, and lie handed to me a printed circular for the Press of New Zealand, asking me to get it published. This circular is a'copy of one which was sent by him to the British papers on January 10, 1909, and it has his autograph signature. It reads as follows.—

"British Embassy, Madrid. I should feel grateful if you would allow me to call attention in your columns to the socalled 'Spanish Swindle.' This timehonored fraud continues to be practised upon the unwary in the United Kingdom and other countries by a gang of ingenious swindlers established in Madrid and other large Spanish towns. Assisted no doubt by accomplices in England, they single out'their victims and extract from them thousands of pounds every year by means of a concocted story which is generally to the following effect: 'A Spanish prisoner who is dying in a military prison desires to provide for 'his only daughter. He possesses a large fortune deposited in England, and offers to transfer it to his correspondent if the latter will maintain and educate the child. Preliminary expenses amounting to £IOO must be forwarded in bank notes to a given address, where the prison chaplain will receive the sum 'and escort the girl to England. The fortune will then be handed over to the correspondent. The story is usually supported by forged documents and newspaper cuttings. I fear thait the evil is on the increase, although the Spanish Government is doing what it can at this end to suppress the traffic. I hope that this letter may serve to put some of the intended victims on their guard and that provincial and colonial journals may copy it, so that it may receive wide publicity. Persons receiving from Spain letters such as I have indicated would do well to communicate with his Majesty's Embassy without delay.—Yours faithfully, Maurice de Bunsen."

"Mr. Du Cros, attached to the Embassy," Mr. Wilford continued, "has been for three years fully occupied with the details of this swindle, and he showed me files of correspondence relating to it from every part of the world. The gang operating this fraud consists, it is believed, of seventy-two persons, and, as Sir Maurice states in his circular, has accomplices everywhere. Japan, New Zealand and Australia are the latest fields of exploitation, and there is no question, Sir Maurice says, that very large sums of money continue to pour into Spain from credulous people who expect to get something for nothing." Mr. Wilford has a photograph of the young lady who in each case is said to be ready to join the applicant in return for his undertaking the trust. An old couple from Germany arrived in Madrid just before Mr. Wilford reached the city, having gone there in order to receive, so they thought, the large fortune waiting. How long this swindle will continue it is impossible to say. The British Embassy appeared to think that the fact that the gang is now working so far afield showed that the number of its dupes was diminishing. Some Wellington men known to Mi 1 . Wilford have, it is feared, already succumbed.