Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1903 — GREAT HUMBERT SWINDLE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT HUMBERT SWINDLE.

Colossal Scheme by Which n Bold Adventnress Got $12,000,000. Mme. Humbert, the greatest swindler of the century, an account of whose en-

reer in Paris reads like a romance and who fled to avoid punishment for her misdeeds, ,was apprehended in Madrid recently, together with her accomplices—her husband, Frederic Humbert, Eva Humbert and Rotnnin, Emil and Marie d'Auriguae. They were taken back to France for trial. The pris o tiers

managed to extract $12,000,(XX) from their dupes before they were found out —one of them, a hanker of high standing, M. Girard, who lost $2,000,000. committed suicide when he found he was ruined. The victims chiefly were hanks and trust companies. Under pretext that an American millionaire, Itobert Crawford, had died between IS7S and 1883, in an unknown place, and left Mme. Humbert his fortune of $20,000.1 MX), by a will dated sit Nice, Sept. 0, 1577, she began borrowing on the strength of ihis, and kept it up twenty years. There was no such man as Crawford. In order to add plausibility to her story, she said Mr. Crawford left two nephews, who commenced an action to set aside the will in the French courts. Pending this, Mme. Humbert had the courts seal the safe wherein the packages were kept containing the $20,000,000 in securities in order to prevent tlieir being purloined by the contestants or their agents. The nephews.

Henry and Robert Crawford, were also myths, but tin* plot was so skillfully arranged by the wom : an that the courts accepted the contest placed in their name and for twenty years they wore made to appear as disputing the \vi 11 by attorneys from the highest to the lowest courts of France.

I'rom time to time the parties to whom the chief conspirator nppffed for loans would ask to see her securities. Then with a great flourish she would bring out big envelopes marked with seals and display packages of French three pier cents —a gilt edge security. Then she would exclaim: "What more do you want?” with the result that the skeptical went away satisfied. At the beginning of tile past year some of those who had loaned large sums began an investigation and pursued it relentlessly. They secured an order from the court removing the seals, and the police, in r.iail*any with some of her victims, were dismayed upon opening the safe, to find nothing but a venerable jewel box and some old papers—not a trace of the $20,I WO,OOO fortune. In the meantime the swindlers had decamped. This was ou May 0, They succeeded in eluding the law for nine months, though all Europe was ransacked in hopes of getting them, while a search was made in the United States.

MME. HUMBERT.

FRED. HUMBERT. HUMBERT.