Insull Hunt No. 2

Where Illinois failed to extradite him last year for embezzlement, the Federal Government last week was trying its powerful hand at getting Samuel Insull, Chicago's runaway utilitarian, out of Greece on criminal bankruptcy charges. Into his suite at Athens' swank Grande Bretagne Hotel marched Greek policemen with an order for his arrest. Fugitive Insull, aged 73, lost his temper, sputtered and fumed while his rooms were being searched, his papers seized. Day prior he had told the Athens correspondent of the New York Sun that he "never felt better." By the time he reached police headquarters he complained of being a sick old man who would die in jail. He was placed under guard in the Logothetopoulos Clinic. Most interested in his arrest was a 30-year-old Turk named Mrs. Vouyndjoglou who used to accompany him to Athens parties.

Last December Sam Insull beat extradition when the Greek Court of Appeals turned down as insufficient the Illinois indictment for larceny and embezzlement (TIME. Jan. 9). In January the U. S. State Department cancelled his passport, left him a man without a country. He settled down comfortably in Athens, received visits from his family, ignored the disgrace that clouded his name in the U. S.

Last June the Federal grand jury in Chicago returned a secret indictment under the Bankruptcy Act against Samuel Insull, his son Samuel Jr., his brother Martin, now a fugitive in Canada, and eight others including President Harold Leonard Stuart of Halsey, Stuart & Co., President Edward John Doyle of Commonwealth Edison and Stanley Field of Continental Illinois National Bank. The five-pronged charge was that the Insulls & friends had transferred $2,500,000 from their Corporation Securities Co. between Nov. 2, 1931 and Jan. 20, 1932 when they knew their concern was already insolvent to the tune of $11,000,000 and about to crash. The cash transfers were used to pay preferred dividends, increase collateral, reduce bank debts. Under the 1932 U. S.-Greek treaty, violation of the bankruptcy law is specified as an extraditable offense.

Working under cover the U. S. Department of Justice sped Forest Harness to Greece as a special assistant attorney general to help press for extradition through diplomatic channels. Last week in Athens Mr. Harness firmly declared that the Greek Court of Appeals had no right to pass on the substance of the Insull indictment but only upon the legal regularity of the extradition request. In his pocket was a warrant signed by President Roosevelt for the arrest of Fugitive Insull whom Forest Harness was ready to escort home like any common crook.

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