Canadian scam skins U.S. police chiefs

Tuesday, 21 September 2010 00:00

September 20, 1900. Con artists operating in both the United States and Canada skinned American police chiefs, Toronto's Mail and Empire reports.

Letters signed by a bogus Douglas W. Hill, chief inspector of a non-existent Canadian Bureau of Justice, were mailed from Halifax to police chiefs in Western U.S. towns and cities. The police were requested to pick up from their local Wells Fargo express offices, packages addressed to R.E. Merrill, said to be the alias of M.D. Byrnes, an absconding cashier of the mythical Bowring Steamship Company of Halifax. The parcels were shipped "from Greenville Junction Maine, a little place opposite St. Stephen, N.B.," by a supposed New York lawyer, D. Brewster. They were said to contain certificates of the Newfoundland Pulp and Land Company, worth $1,000. There was a reward of $200 for the capture of Merrill, and another reward of $200 for the recovery of the parcels. All that a the police chief had to do to recover the parcel and collect the $200 reward was to pay the COD shipping charge of $8 (about $400 in 2009 currency). Mr. Brewster of New York collected the COD charges and the police chiefs collected worthless parcels.

"As yet no arrests have been made, as the swindlers were clever enough to leave no traces in Halifax, Greenville Junction, or New York," the Mail and Empire concluded.