AMERICAN PRIVATE EYE ON MANHUNT IN U.K.--seeks world's greatest swindler

PICTURED: The hunter and the hunted…Private eye Ed Stanton with a picture of Glen Smith and his wife, Joy.


July 8, 1974
A tough-talking American private detective is in Britain to hunt down the man believed to be the world’s greatest swindler. Ed Stanton has spent more than four month pursuing his quarry through Central and South America. The man he has been ordered to find is former court judge Glen Bryan Smith. Smith was jailed for three years in Atlanta, Georgia for his part in a giant loan swindle. A state prosecutor said businessmen had been fleeced of 40 million pounds. Last February he was released on bail pending appeal. He promptly vanished with his wife Joy. With them went an attaché case said to have been packed with 40 thousand pounds in cash. No Ed, a former police chief, believes that Smith has setup his headquarters in London and is travelling through Europe making contacts for another gigantic fraud. The private eye, who has made his base in a London hotel, said on Sunday night (7/7/74): "Smith knows I am going to be on his back until I catch up with him." Smith, 46, is know as a big spender. He is fluent in five languages, and is an accomplished yachtsman and pilot. Stanton, hired by an insurance company which lost money to Smith, said: "I understand he has bank accounts in London and Switzerland."