Canada: The Count

In Montreal, Alexander Navarro Fernandez (or was it Carlos Lados?) from Spain (or was it Austria?) was known as “Count Navarro.” He was a dapper little man with hollow cheeks, a dab of grey mustache, and a heel-clicking ballroom manner. He lived here & there, but he liked best the expensive elegance of the Mount Royal Hotel.

He said he was a cousin to the late King Alfonso of Spain, and he drew himself up to his full 5 ft. 7 in. when doubters wanted to stick pins in him to see if he had hemophilia. He had no Hapsburg lip either, but he did have cigar boxes chockablock with $1,000 bills, though no one ever got really close enough to find out if they were real. He scooted around in a Duesenberg and gave fancy dinner parties (guests remembered, later, that a waitress always read the menu for him).

Once he offered to buy La Presse for a friendly newsman. Another man who wanted to borrow some money from the Count ended up by lending him $1,500. In the best Continental manner, the Count surrounded himself with pretty women.

The Count had a pat explanation for his stockpile of dollars. He said he had been a bootlegger in the U.S. during Prohibition, and was known as “Kid Tiger” (or was it “The Frog Man?”).

He had $10,000,000 stashed away in many safe deposit boxes all over the U.S. It was too bad that he could not get into the U.S. to get the cash right away. A number of Montrealers lent money to the Count to tide him over. Then last July, the Count suddenly vanished.

Last week all Montreal found out where the Count had gone: to South America. But Venezuela would not keep him. Neither would the Dutch West Indies. He finally turned up by plane at Miami, Fla., and U.S. G-men promptly arrested him. Said the FBI: a Washington lawyer named M. 0. Dunning had advanced $125,000 to help the Count get into the U.S. (Dunning had borrowed on collateral supplied by Sigmund Janas, president of Colonial Airlines, which flies to Montreal.) In return Dunning was to get 10% of the supposed cash. But, said the FBI: Count Navarro was really Abraham Albert Sycowski of Poland, a slick confidence man. There were no safe deposit boxes.