3175126a

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Victor Console/ANL/REX (3175126a) Madame Marthe Hanau Woman Financier Marthe Hanau (1890-1935) Was A Frenchwoman Who Defrauded French Financial Markets In The 1920s And 1930s. Marthe Hanau Was Born In Lille To A Jewish Family Of An Industrialist. She Married And Later Divorced Lazare Bloch. In 1925 She And Bloch (the Two Remained Business Partners After The Divorce) Founded An Economic Newspaper La Gazette Du Franc Et Des Nations. Hanau Used The Newspaper To Dispense Stock Tips To Financial Speculators. Hanau's Paper Promoted Mainly The Stocks And Securities Of Her Own Business Partners Whose Businesses Were Mere Shells Or Paper Companies. Still The Value Of Their Stock Kept Rising When Stockbrokers Bought And Traded Them. Hanau Expanded Her Investing Advice Network And Later Formed Her Own Financial News Agency Agence Interpresse. She Even Released Short-term Bonds That Promised 8% Interest. This Time French Banks And Agence Havas The Rival Financial News Agency Turned Against Her. Banks Began To Investigate The Non-existent Companies And Soon There Were Numerous Rumors About Hanau's Shady Business Practices. At First Hanau Managed To Quell The Rumors By Bribing Cooperative Politicians. However When Charges Continued To Swirl Around Her Police Arrested Hanau Bloch And Many Of Their Business Partners On 17 December 1928. They Were Charged With Fraud And Confined In St. Lazare Prison. By That Time Her Investors Had Lost Approximately 120 000 000 Contemporary French Francs. The Preliminary Trial Began 15 Months Later. Hanau Protested That The Court Did Not Understand Financial Business That She Could Return All The Money And That She Should Be Released On Bail. When Court Denied The Bail She Went On A Hunger Strike. Three Weeks Later Hanau Was Moved To Cochi Hospital In Neuilly Where She Was Forcibly Fed. When She Was Left Alone She Made A Rope Out Of Bedsheets Climbed Out Of The Window And Returned To St. Lazare Prison. Police Chief Chi...