In early 1912, Charles Deville Wells – best known as “The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” – was arrested on board his yacht at Falmouth. A photograph (below left) appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror. I recently visited the scene myself, and photographed the scene as it looks now. (Below right). By this time, the man who broke the bank had moved on to opening his own bank.
For the full story read my book, The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, Charles Deville Wells – gambler and fraudster extraordinaire. For more details, or to buy your own copy, please see the Amazon page here.
A yacht belonging to Charles Wells, the man who broke the bank, pictured at the time of his arrest in 1912. The figure on the foredeck is probably the yacht’s captain – perhaps wondering whether his boss would return.
A present-day scene from approximately the same viewpoint