Laredo Weekly Times

From Saturday's Daily,

AFTER THE SWINDLERS.

The federal government is now taking a hand in the punishment of hundreds of swindlers who have mulcted the people, according to the department of justice, of nearly $150,000,000 through "fake" stock transactions.

The government is interested because the swindlers have used the mails in their nefarious operations and therefore can take cognizance of the crimes, no matter where they were committed within our territorial limits.

An investigator at Fort Worth said the amount secured fraudulently from the public at that point alone is not less than $100,000 daily. Of course, this is an exceptional amount for one section of the country, due to the fact that Fort Worth is the oil metropolis of the North Texas oil fields and many people go there looking for an investment in that line,

Wherever oil has been discovered the legitimate investors and developers have been confronted with this class of rapacious swindlers, and the loss to the oil fraternity is almost as great as to the credulous investor who is so easily gulled by the swindler.

During the early days of the Ranger and Burkburnett development, many "companies" were promoted overnight by people who had no title to the land and not even a lease to back up their fictitious stock

Newsboys, waiters in restaurants, even the chambermaids and the washerwomen "traded" in stocks of these concerns and some of them with a par value of 10c a share sometimes were carried by the "frenzied finance" of the oil fields to many times their face value overnight, only to absolutely fail in the end.

Working from Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, some of the swindlers carried on an extensive campaign by mail, their only holdings being the beautifully engraved certificates of stock, some attractive letterheads and a postoffice box "right on the ground," as they daily told their dupes from abroad.

Reference to banks of standing was sufficient to induce many to send their checks or postal money orders for the worthless stock, and in all probability the estimate of the department of justice is not at all exaggerated, for some of the swindlers enriched themselves within a few weeks and left for parts unknown.

As a result, many who were cheated out of their savings were so disillusioned that they would not invest in the genuine stock of reputable companies and this was a hardship to developers who needed capital for actual operations and who were honest and honorable.

For a time there was an orgy of "investing" all over the state, and Laredo was not exempt from the predatory crew who respected neither age nor the defenseless condition of many of their victims.

Many thousands of dollars were paid out by our citizens for stock in concerns of varying shadiness, and when it is remembered that even the legitimate concern cannot be certain of making a return on the investment, it is readily seen that the "sucker" had no hope whatever of receiving anything from the money invested in the attractive shares of these deliberate swindlers.

It will be gratifying to people all over the country to know that some of these stock swindlers have met with their just deserts. It is human nature to feel somewhat revengeful and to desire punishment for those who have robbed one, and there will be no one to mourn if the fake stock peddlers are given the limit of the law.

It is doubtful if even the courts can secure the restitution of any great percentage, if any at all, of the money secured from the trusting dupes of these swindlers, but at any rate they can be and doubtless will be punished for their offenses.