Bolo Pasha

Bolo Pasha, originally named Paul Bolo, (September 24, 1867 – April 17, 1918) was a Frenchman who was a Levantine financer, traitor, and a German agent. The New York Times wrote that he "circumnavigated the globe, engaged in various curious occupations, participated in many shady schemes." The French secret police and Scotland Yard failed to collect enough evidence to convict him of treason, but he was eventually convicted with the help of evidence collected by the New York Attorney General. He was executed by firing squad on April 17, 1918. to act as an intermediary for the financing of German espionage and sabotage in the US and launder the financial transactions. In 1915 von Bernstorff and Bolo had devised a scheme to destabilise the French war effort by corrupting the French press in order to force an early armistice with Germany. The Paris newspaper Le Journal, owned by Senator Charles Humbert, was to be one of the papers to carry misleading 'fake news'.

The banking firm Muller, Schall and Company acted for the pair and used G. Amsinck & Co. as a front to facilitate the transfer of $1,700,000 to fund the subterfuge. Amsinck and Co. had also arranged payments to the men who attempted to sabotage the Welland Canal in 1916.

When the French government appealed to the governor of New York asking for help in collecting evidence against Bolo, Merton E. Lewis, the Attorney General of New York State, was assigned to the case.