Colossal Swindling

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 20, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 41.

Colossal Swindling

The United States secret service has unearthed, or run to cover, to quite an extent, a national band of fake-race operators who had gathered total plunder to the extent of $500,000, and most of the documentary evidence was found in the trunks of the four fake-race swindlers arrested in San Jose recently. It is one of the biggest swindling schemes ever operated in this country. Its leaders went from city to city selling sure things on fake races, and plucking thousands who wished to get rich quick. They corrupted officials in every town in which they operated. They had a complete and elaborate telegraphic code numbering every field man and every horse. Messages could have gone through the hands of any detective without giving the slightest clue to their meaning. The victim of the gang was not robbed in his own town. They would bring one man from Alaska to Seattle, for instance; another from Michigan to Missouri. They would lure them from home under other catchy proposals, such as a timber investment, or an investment in land. One inspector declared that one would not believe it possible that so many people could be robbed with so little noise or that there were so many people of that kind in the world.