The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-03-01
FIND TRADE IN
BOGUS PASSPORTS
Federal Officials Believe 100
Persons Have Thus Left
Country in Nine Months
ARREST ITALIANS
IN NEW YORK CITY
Clerk in Consulate Accused of Assisting
Albanians and Greeks to Get Away
Germans May Have Utilized Same
Source for Papers.

NEW YORK, March What feder-
al officials believe was system by
which more than one hundred persons
have left the United States in the last |
nine months on fraudulent passports was |
uncovered III the arrest of Xix Italians, |
one Of them a clerk in the Italian con |
sulate, on 4 charge of selling falsified |
passports to Albanians and Greeks, who
were anxious to get to Europe. The
| important feature Of the case il that it
appears that it would have been easy
| for Germany S agents to obtain these
pa sports, and thus go to Europe. There
is in the case no reflection on Italian
officials, other than the clerk.
The men arrested were Ernest Quad
rino, clerk in the Italian consulate:
Salvatore Pasquale, an employee of the
Italian Immigrant society, of 6 Walter
street; Paul Vokas, George Vrainos,
and 'Archimedes Garros, employees OF
Bourros Brothers, steamship agents, of
and Battery place, and George Eos
colas. restaurant keeper in lower
Broadway They were all held by Com
missioner Hitchcock for further exam
nation.
According to the federal officials, all
Of the men confessed that they were
parts of machine for selling bogus
passports. Under regulations in effect
for the last year when a resident of
Albania, now under Italian control, ap-
} piled for 4 passport, the papers were
sent to Rome and an inquiry made III
Albania as to whether il was proper foI
the applicant to go there. This takes
from four. to five months. The federal
officials said that Foseolas and Pasquale
acted as stecrers for persons who
wished to go abroad. The would di
: rect them to the ticket office, where
f Nokas. Erainos and Carros would ad
: wise them that for $50 or So5 they coul(
il get them passports right away. Whcl
;. this part of the deal wa5 carrie,
/ through it was said that the passport
If would then be taken to the Italian con
e sulate, where Quadrino would afiix tn
o signature of the consul. and when tn
e Job was finished the resulting passpor
looked exactly az if it had gone through
70 official channels having, as it did til
IL official seal of the consulate on il.
ii for some time that men had been get
ID ting to Albania and to Greece from thi
- country on falSified passports The re
(. suit Of the investigation was the arrcS
h of eight men as they were about to sal
on French liner recently. These me-
Of confessed. il was said, that their pass
Is ports were fraudulent. and after ques
Of tioning them, the six men, includin
! n Iv.t,, 4 oh
who were about to sail were held a
to material witnesses The teehnica
he charge on which the men were held wa
i'll classifying a passport for Petros Kaler
he sis, a Greek.
The federal officials refused to 50
whether or not they had evidence tina
German agents used this means of ge'
!. ting passports to enable them to 9
10 from this country to Italy, Greece,
Albania. They admitted that it woul
have been comparatively easy for &c
- mans to have obtained passports fro
: this source. 1t was pointed out tn;
because of conditions in Albania. ov,
% which the Italians and Austrians a.
fighting, German agents might desi
u to get there as well az into Greece.
re The case against the men was workt
III up by Captain Frank Burke of the S
lc- cret service. The complainant again
al them at the arraignment was Geors
e. F. Land of the legal force of the Gu
be toms house. The evidence showed TIL
re the firm of Bourros Brothers was III
on involved at all outside of the three er
ployes, who appeared to have made Il
= most out of the transactions The of
, Gals said that when these men got +: