Baser Kreuger

The Kreuger Scandal, already grown into one of the ugliest affairs in business history, last week increased in malignancy. At the time of Herr Kreuger's suicide it was suspected that there were '"irregularities" in his books. By last week the '"irregularities" had been disclosed as fraud of the worst type. Then came two disclosures which shattered the last vestige of admiration which could have attached itself to the late great maker of matches. Disclosure No. 1, coming with the arrest of three of Kreuger's associates, was that the "irregularities" were not born of falling markets and reverses but began in 1925. Disclosure No. 2 showed Kreuger in a scene that might have been taken from a common crook melodrama.

This scene occurred in 1931. Kreuger, failing to get a match monopoly in Italy, needed funds. From an Italian engraver he got copper plates that bore the likeness of an Italian Government bond. On a piece of paper he sketched the way he would like an English-worded statement printed. He furtively took the plates to a Stockholm printer. The printer, knowing Kreuger's affairs were vast, did not become suspicious when he was asked to print 42 bonds, each of -L-500,000 denomination. Kreuger took the counterfeits, forged on them the name of E. Drelli, gave them to his companies in return for good bonds upon which he could borrow. To anyone who became suspicious he would whisper that relations between France and Italy were strained, no mention of his big "loan" to Italy must be made.

Other developments during the week were: a charge that Kreuger supported a Stockholm Communistic paper (as did many a Russian capitalist before the Revolution) ; an opinion that Sweden's high income taxes must be upped another 15% to make up for the loss of Kreuger & Toll's big payments. "Only the beginning" was the gloomy warning of the Government's newspaper, Svenska Morgonbladet: "The coming week will be one of the most nerve-wracking ever experienced by the Swedish nation."

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