SUPPOSED OPIUM DEN.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20170, 24 February 1931, Page 4

SUPPOSED OPIUM DEN.

RAID BY AUCKLAND POLICE. ' > STRONG SYSTEM OP BARS . AND BARRICADES. [YBB PBBBS SpeeUl Service.] AUCKLAND, February 23." All that detectives found when they raided .premises in Gyey avenue. ■■, list evening was a blazing benzine tin with flames leaping to the ceiling, and ton complacent Chinese. It took f°U£ detectives, working with pick, tomahawk, and marline-spike, almost an hour before they broke into this Chinese 'fortress.'^ It is suspected that the-premises Were used as an opium donj .hut no arrest ; was made. Possibly the blazing tin* contained the evidence. Detectives Moon, .Moore, . Mills, and, Hayes found .their way blocked by heavily-barred doors and windows. They attempted, to get in by the front door; but a system of 'secret bells; apparently, warned the Chinese, for inside there eould he heard; a scampering of feet and much excited chatter. Eventually the detectives managed to break open the front door and found themselves in a deserted front room. Tho communicating door to the next -room.,was even more barred than the'front door, ancKagafy they were frustrated. Both'the'front and back of this communicating door were lined with steel, bolted with • over 20 half-inch bolts, and barred with- ,4in.x gin wooden struts and thick iron bars. It' was 1 impossible at Jhig ' stage - for the'defectives to break through suck a barrier. Consequently they wire stationed at points- where- it' was t bought the occupants would try to get •way.-' ■ detectives rtced to the i«.ck JdoojrJln an attempt, fo break in there; back "door was even more There were 33 nuts and jte |he door. It was treble-barred «id jft^k^cea.; both the b,ack , ; an& front dooxs, which . -■ -.they eouldfnot get because on tho inside barn by six-by-