Word: portlands
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Thus equipped, the ringleaders phoned appointed contacts in U.S. cities-Chicago, Detroit, Portland (Ore.), Philadelphia, Harrisburg (Pa.), Minneapolis-fed them the winning answers. Many of the participants were on the fringes of the entertainment business; Dingman was the only one with a newspaper connection. Often, time zones worked for the swindle; e.g., the phony London bank got its answers at least two hours before U.S. newspapers on the West Coast...
Eventually, the Canadians got too greedy. They expanded, hired outside amateurs-a chiropractor's wife and a TV repairman in Portland, a pretty secretary in Detroit, a dress-plant manager near Harrisburg-who would settle for peanuts: $150 to $300 cuts of $3,000 and $4,000 wins. The ringers were the ring's undoing. When in February the suddenly suspicious Portland papers called in the FBI, investigators concentrated on the weak links. After their shamed confessions, the FBI pieced together the whole story...
After reporters clearly established that the fix was on. the Portland papers called in the police and the FBI. In Detroit authorities learned that "Harry Valk" was Harry H. Balk, a shadowy freelance booking agent who had not only collected the prize money wired from Portland but had won $4,400 on his own last December in a puzzle contest in the Chicago American. Last week Balk was hibernating in Brooklyn. The probability that the fix was bigger than Balk arose when Robert F. Kennedy, counsel for the U.S. Senate rackets committee, disclosed that racketeers had attempted to bribe...
...Guilty Defendant. As the Portland story clattered over the press wires, many another newspaper began to turn a wary eye on puzzle contests. President Bernard Ridder of the St. Paul Pioneer Press made a worried call to Portland, then canceled his contest and turned its records over to the FBI.*At week's end the FBI was joined in its investigation by the U.S. Postal Service...
...contests to newspapers. In New York. Andre F. L'Eveque, who runs Superior Features, announced that he had found and plugged a leak and had given full details to the FBI. The other syndicates insisted that the precautions they take against leaks are foolproof. But what happened in Portland presented undeniable evidence that more than a leak at Superior was involved, since another syndicate's puzzle was fixed...