AUDACIOUS FRAUD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1938, Page 5

AUDACIOUS FRAUD

ROYAL VISIT.TO PARIS. BOGUS PRESENTATION CARDS. Visitors to Paris from Britain, the Dominions and America have fallen victims to an audacious racket worked in connection with the.presence in the French capital of the King and Queen, writes a Londond correspondent. They have fallen for an intimation 'that a selected number of people of the Ang-lo-Saxon race would be presented to their Majesties during the visit providing they held cards from a certain agency. The price fixed went as high as £lOOO, and those who were deceived by the trick were given in exchange for their money a gaudily printed card intimating that they might present themselves at a place at a given time with the certainty of being received by the King and Queen. There was, of course, no possibility of those cards being honoured. They would not be recognised by the police controlling the approach to the itinerary laid out for the Royal visitors; also the list of presentations was strictly controlled by the French Government.

The police obtained the address of the agency concerned and made a raid, but it is said that' the suspects had gone.

“What are you thinkin’ of doin’ with your boy, Joe?” “Well, I thought of trying to get him into the police.” “The police. Why?” “Well, they’re sure to ’aye ’im one way or another.”