A. Swindlers with Swank

Beware of smooth-gabbing guys who drive around in big black limousines with chauffeurs and live in costly apartments staffed with butlers, housekeepers and valets. Some may be on the up-and-up. But, what with taxes and cost of living, few square shooters can afford such luxury.

A few we know:

One has an “in” in the reservation departments of the big hotels. He is tipped off to the prospective arrival of a wealthy chump. This is how he worked one case: When Mr. Money arrived at the airport, the grifter had him paged, then introduced himself with a bunk story, such as being a friend of the hotel manager, who had asked him to pick up the boob. The lamb lamps the limo and is sure the glib gypster who is giving him a lift is okay. The wire has been properly briefed on the stranger’s habits. He knows he’d go for a little life, so he suggests they go to his suite for a slug. In a little while, a couple of babes happen in. Soon everyone is drunk and undressed. That’s when the pictures are ground out. One metal-manufacturer went for $35,000, left town next day.

Another sold the famous Muscle Shoals Dam to a former Congressman from Nebraska for $50,000. He used Henry Ford’s name as a reference and flashed a phony letter from him authorizing the sale.

Some years ago, in another administration, this same tip-and-tosser tried to sell forged documents to the President and Vice-President and other high officials. He said they were found in the clothes of a dead man on the street. The papers, if genuine, were so hot they would have blown up the government.

If someone tells you he can let you in on the inside of a hot oil deal, and then introduces you to a couple of “prospectors” who just arrived from Kentucky, call the cops, especially if one is an Indian with long plaited hair and the other is dressed like a vaudeville comedian’s idea of a Southern Colonel. These fast workers make a splendid living peddling queer securities from an office on the sidewalk in front of the Ambassador Hotel, at 14th and K. They have a fabulous well in Kentucky, and they guarantee it is producing. It is. One barrel a day.

They mooch strictly person-to-person. They do no business through the mails, so they are clear of the Post Office and the SEC. Many of their meat are middle-aged and elderly women, widows with a small amount of insurance or a modest business like a rooming-house preferred. But they will tackle tough touches, approached originally by dames.

Watch out for anyone you meet in a hotel who offers to get you a dame. Odds are you will end up in a barrel, running second in a badger-game. The boys tried it on a Washington newspaperman recently, but for once they saw the back of the eight-ball. Not only didn’t the reporter have any money, but he knew the right cops. He ended up borrowing a century-note from them.