Duquesne Spy Ring
On 28 June 1941, following a two-year investigation, Duquesne was arrested by the FBI along with two associates on charges of relaying secret information on Allied weaponry and shipping movements to Germany. Agents successfully filmed members of Duquesne's ring as they provided information to William G. Sebold, a confidential FBI informant and double agent. On 2 January 1942, the 33 members of the Duquesne Spy Ring, the largest espionage ring conviction in the history of the United States, were sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison. One German spymaster later commented that the ring’s roundup delivered ‘the death blow’ to their espionage efforts in the United States. J. Edgar Hoover called his FBI swoop on Duquesne's ring the greatest spy roundup in U.S. history. During his trial, Duquesne claimed that his actions were aimed at the UK as revenge for the crimes done to his people and his country during the Second Anglo-Boer War.
This time, the 64-year-old Fritz Joubert Duquesne did not escape; he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He also received a 2-year concurrent sentence and the imposition of a $2,000 fine for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He served his sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas where he was mistreated and beaten by inmates. In 1954, he was released owing to ill health, having served 13 years, and died indigent, at City Hospital on Welfare Island (now Roosevelt Island) on 24 May 1956 at the age of 78 years.
Read more about this topic: Fritz Joubert Duquesne, Second World War
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