The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1910-01-07
G. n. IS BQ N .
ALLEGED TRAFFicKINo IN SALE
OF TRIP PASSES uNEARTHED
IN ST. PAUL.
Chief CLERK IS INVOLVED
Practice Said to Have Covered Period
Of Four Years-Clerk Blamed
for Devising
System.

st. Paul. MINI. = Through series
OF frauds in the disposition of trip
passes, the Great Northern railroad has
been defrauded out of from $125,000
to $4,000 year. The leakage is
said to have been going on for four
years and that the railroad has lost
upward of 100000.
AL Ray, special agent for the Great
Northern, has been working on the
case for over year, aided by Detec-
tives Fraser and Lane, st. Paul police
department. Two arrests have been
made. Paul Carbon, saloonkeeper, st.
Paul, is charged with disposing of the
passes. Another arrest has been made
in Grand Forks, N. D.
It is declared the thefts have been
going on for the last four years and
that nearly every city of any size on
the entire line of the Great Northern
has an agent of the swindlers, who dis.
posed of tickets in his own town.
Employment agencies throughout the
West are also said to have been con-
nected with the frauds, and wholesale
arrests are expected among this class.
The manner used by the thieves is
said to have been to take the trip
passes which had been issued to the
maintenance of way department for
the use of laborers and others employ
ed on the line, and by making wrong
full returns dispose of them to their
agents, who would sell them to employ
ment agencies or other parties who
had demand for them.
S. F. Woodbury., chief clerk in the
maintenance of way Office of the Great
Northern, who has been in the service
OF the Great Northern for several
years, is charged with being implicated
in the deal. AS chief clerk it was his
duty to issue the trip passes and no
check could be kept on the number
since the chief engineer of the mainte-
nance of way department spends most
of his time on the system. How much
light Mr.. Woodbury. cast on the frauds
could not 7,e ascertained, Special
Agent Ray neither denying nor af.
firming that the chief clerk had made
any admissions.
Louis Hill, president of the Great
Northern, has taken personal charge of
the case and promises that no efforts
will be spared to bring the guilty ones
to justice. He expects 20 arrests to be
made before the end of the week.
At the Northern Pacific offices it was
stated that an occasional culprit had
been caught disposing of employees
passes to those not entitled to them,
out it was claimed that the system was
such on the Northern Pacific that it
would soon discover any extension of
the fraud.
Grand Forks.-A. Toscas, charged
with obtaining property under false
pretenses, will be given preliminary
hearing before Justice Purcell Jan. z.
In meantime he is out of custody on
the strength of $1,000 bail provided by
A. F. Turner and Max Rabinovich.
The defendant, who has been the
Greek interpreter for the Great North
ern several years, was taken into GUS
tody Wednesday. Toscas denies being
guilty of the charge filed, saying it is
but part of plan that is being worked
out by enemies to bring about his un.
doing. He expresses confidence at be.
ing able to clear himself.
Toscas has been in the limelight con-
siderably for some time past. Various
charges have been made against him
of fraud in connection with the
handling of the Greek laborers in this
section. Specific charges are now filed
against him of using railroad passes
for his own benefit by selling them to
Greek laborers.