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Friday, July 1, 2011

Lonely Hearts Racketeer Margot Wagner - 1944


FULL TEXT: Chicago – Assistant Postal Inspector M. L. Goldsmith has announced the arrest of a German-born, middle aged woman whom he said in the last four years had obtained large sums of money from an uncounted number of prospective husbands through an alleged marriage swindle.

Goldsmith said the post-office department had received complaints that the woman, whom he said used a half a dozen aliases, took at least $50,000 from 10 men who met her after she had answered their advertisements for a “German wife or companion.”

The inspector said that most of the victims, apparently of German ancestry, had advertised in German language newspapers in the east and midwest. In each case, he said, the woman would convince the prospective husband the government intended to freeze their assets. She persuaded them to put their cash into safe deposit vaults, Goldsmith related, and then would steal the funds and disappear. He said many more than the 10 known men may have been victimized by the woman.

The woman’s name, as given in a suppressed federal indictment charging mail fraud here, is Margot Wagner, said Assistant U. S. Attorney George G. Kelly.

[“Woman Charged With Huge Swindles,” syndicated (UP), Council Bluffs Nonpareil (Io.), Sep. 19, 1944, p. 10]

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