The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-02-16
Archives Show Full
 Data On Chief Spies
With 60 Accused Spies in Jail, France Card-Indexes
 Many MOre-One LOve-Sick Soldier

|, looking; born T. .chekaloff, at Ro- lstoE, Russia. She has done a bit of everything, with degrees in mathe- matics, chemistry, oriental lan- guages; paints on silk, writes nov ie scenario and invents Swedish exercises. She was the chief, the brains of the International Syndi- cate and tied up her gang with the famed Finnish Syndicate. LOUIS PIERRE NICHOLAS MARTIN, 54, native Partisan who became enamored of Lydia Stah1 although there is no proof that she did more than use him as tool. She got him a job as interpreter at te ministry of navy where all the documents of great secret importance passed through his hands. From humble pro- lessor of language he became a tool of master spy.
 BENJAMIN BERCoVITZ, AZ, and his wife; native Rumanians, naturalized Canadians who lived long in western Canada; they leaders of the Syndicate.
 MARIE MERMET, 23, a village school-teacher, daughter of re- tired French police commissioners who seems to have slipped into spying by mistake. It was in her | home that police discovered an elaborate radio set-up for sending clandestine messages to agents | abroad by wireless.
 | DOUCHAN HARANDISH, AZ, a Serbian journalist who is said to l be an expert at taking photo- graphs through keyholeS.
 ROBERT GORDON SWITZ, 29, of East Orange, IN. J., an American who learned his flying in France but quit the aviation game to come to France as a salesman for air. 1 plane instruments. He is in jail despite his insistence that certain French secret military documents were planted behind a dresser in his hotel room.
 MARJORIE TILLEY SWITZ, 22, of New, York and Swan Court, Chelsea, London, wife of the American aviator. A Vassar grad uate, she came to France on her honeymoon. Nervy and pretty, she seems to have baffled French se- cret police. They hold her in the century-old women's prison under heavy guard because they say she was the most able in the band in lodging followers by rapid chang ing of subway trains, hurrying into and out of buildings with double entrances.
 NOISE sALzMAN, a Polish medical student, 25, and his wife Clara, also Pole. They were studying at Saint Antoine hospital by day and meeting with other members of the gang at night. | Police are modest in their boasts but they are pleased to admit that the International Syndicate was have had since the war. The Rhineland gang arrest was mere child's play in comparison.
 In that there were but two ma jor arrests:
 SOPHIE DRoZDT, "La sBelle Sophie" who was far from belle" !" Fat and 40, she was barmaid along the German frontier. In her well-rounded way, she set about making friends with French con- script soldiers until she finally per- suaded one to steal for her from his barracks new type of French pneumatic rifle. She was arrested when she crossed the frontier with the rifle under her skirts-for she was an unusual spy, she really wore skirts.
 RENE PLEsToN, 20, the love- sick soldier of the 18th Regiment of French Chasseurs, faces trial with her. He loved the buxom maiden in his youthful ardor and must pay the penalty for having made her a gift of the rifle. l
 TOMORROW: MT Heinzen tells of Spies in Skirts" revealing the hazardous work of some of the women known to have engaged in this "business."