Arizona republican., 1912-09-26
LAND SHARKS
 AND SETTLERS
Discovery of a Scheme Which is Being Worked i'll This State By An Or ganization Safely and Profitably.

A species of land fraud so skillfully committed that it is without the jur- isdiction of the federal authorities has been reported to them by some of the victims, most of them entrymen in the Casa Grande valley. There seems to be an organization consisting of three groups, one in Los Angeles, one !n Kansas and the third in Oklahoma.
 The modus operandi is as follows: A member of one of these groups ap- breaches a citizen somewhere within the territory he is expected to cover and tells him about Arizona lands and opportunities. He explains to him that there is q great deal of good land to be entered and that it can be ob- tained at $1.25 an acre. He says that he himself has taken up some of it and is desirous of securing good reighbors: he has no other interest in the matter.
 Part of what ae has told is true as to the characte.' Of the land and the cost of it. What ne has said about his disinterestedness is plain lying but it is not fraudulent, though the purpose is.
 The operator out of the kindness If his heart offers to locate the vic t:m on Q quarter section and the vic tim comes with him, and sees the land and is pleased with it; it is cheap at SIPS an acre He gives the operator the price of it, supposing that it is to be paid into the land office forthwith and that that will be the end of the matter. though the operator has been 1 h tI,ot point.
 The operator then takes upon him. 1 self all the trouble incident to the location and under his direction des- ert entry is made for which the op-
 orator turns into the land office the required twenty-five cents an acre | or $40. He receives a receipt which 1 the victim. unfamiliar with such mat | ters at first believes to be clear title 1 to the land. Thus the operator by his disinterestedness clears $160. i In two cases he failed to get away with it. In one case he was dealing with a widow who gave him a checl
 for $200. Though she had no know ledge of the methods of the land de { partment she was stocked with WOm | anly curiosity. She examined the re ] ceipt and found that it was by n' i means a patent and that many thing, | would have to be done before she be |! came an actual landholder. She con <! suited the authorities at once and ol .i her statement of the case she was ad
 vised to stop payment of the checl
 and that was done.
 In another case the victim was sus
 picious by nature. He did not believ
 there was any genuine disinterested
 ness in the world and he insisted Ol
 overseeing every move made by tn operator who wanted nothing but goo neighbOrs Moreover he decided t
 keep his money in his pocket unti
 he saw what he was getting for and then to pay it himself to some body authorized to receive it.
 The sharks generally make sure
 work of it than this and when late their victims find out that they hay been victimiZed they point out tha the difference between what they pa to the operator and what the operate pays in the way of an entry fee remuneration for his services in 'lo eating" the victim on the land It is stated that though there ma be a state law under which the shar pers may be proceeded against ther is no federal law applicable to the of fense.