The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-02-28
CROOKS GOT A MILLION
Imperial Trustee Co. Guaranteed
Corporation Securities.
HAD AGENTS IN MANY CITIES

They Advertised TO Buy IGonds and Re-
ierred Owners to Parent Concern -
No Results For tho Owners - Five
Charged With Fraud-Compared With
the Celebrated Miller case.
New York City.-When John L.
White. Robert G. Ruxton and Clyde
Colt were arrested in New York. on
bench warrants issued by Judge Ian
ming of the United States District
Court, sitting in Trenton, n. j., the
operations of an organized band of
men who in the last eight years have
gathered a sum v%ariously estimated at
from $75O,OOO to $1,O00,000 by meth
DDS of which the Federal authorities
disapprove, were brought to light.
White is the President Of the I'm
perial Trustee Company, a New Jersey
corporation, with handsome offices in
the Weldon Building, T6 Montgomery
street, Jersey City. This company, or
ganized in 1898, advertiseS assets of
S1,425, 900, including $50O,00O capital,
100000 surplus, and $425,0UO undl-
vided assets. The Postofice Depart
ment, assisted by the State Banking
Department of New Jersey, has been
investigating the methods of this con-
Germ for two years.
Ruxton is a broker, with offices at
so Broadway. Colt is in the same
business, has Offices in the Vanderbilt
Building, Nassau and Beekman streets.
They are accused Of supplying Gus
toners to the Trustee Company and
sharing in the gains.
Later in the day. in Boston, a fourth
man Foster Hooper-was arrested.
Hooper is the head Of the investment
department of the Hanover Bank of
that city, which succeeded the State
Banking and Safe Deposit Company
there, and which is incorporated with
q capital stock of $250,000. Hooper is
charged with promoting the enterprise
in Boston.
On the directorate of the Hanover
Bank, which has offices at 1872 Hanover
street, are four men who are openly
identified with the Imperial Trustee
Company. They are Francis W. ia
cobs, an ex-State Senator of Massachu-
sets, who is Secretary and Treasurer
of the Imperial; Ruxton, the New York
broker; NJ. s. Rosewig, who had desk
room in the Trustee Company's suite
of offices, and Hooper.
A fifth arrest was made when Fred
erick Waugh, formerly Of Philadel-
phia, where he was a cog in the m
perial machinery. was found in a west
side apartment house and locked up
in the West Forty-seventh Street Po-
lice Station. Waugh posed as a broker,
having offices in the Drexel Building.
and worked with Francis Mcfarland,
who managed an Imperial creation
there which sailed under the title of
the International Trust Company until
the postal authorities began to look
into it. Then it closed.
There is still another warrant to be
served, but it is believed that. the man
against whom it is directed is out or
the country. All six warrants are
based upon indictments found last
month by the Federal Grand Jury in
Trenton upon evidence supplied by
Postofice Inspectors James 7. Cor
telyou, q brother of the Postmaster
and R. G.. Gibbons. In each
instance the Indictment charges con-
spiracy to defraud and the use Of the
United States mails in, furtherance of
the conspiracy. Three indictments
were found against White. and one
each against the other five men.
The Federal authorities declare that
the fraud was worked on a bigger
scale than any since the Storey Cotton
Company case. 1t almost deserves a
place, they say, with the Miller syndi-
cate, and is altogether unique in that
it's victims were not individuals, but
corporations, which were struggling
to gain a foothold-
The ramifcations Of the case lead to
many cities. Already hundreds of
complaints have been received by the
Postofice Department, but Inspector
C%ortelyou, who has had charge OF the
investigation from the beginning, does
not believe that he has heard from
more than a small percentage of the
1OSerS.