Dockside Meat Thefts Continue

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 20

Dockside Meat Thefts Continue

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, July 10.

Dockside thefts of Australian and New Zealand lamb were sending up the price of the week-end joint in Britain, the “News of the World” reported.

The newspaper said highlyorganised syndicates were at work at docks in London, Liverpool and Avonmouth. ■The equivalent of 10,000 week-ejid joints vanished every week. Four shipping companies importing meat from Australia and New Zealand claimed last night that their yearly meat losses amounted to £222,000, the newspaper said. But the addition of losses by other companies could bring the total to £500,000. But four of the companies —Shaw Savill, New Zealand Shipping, Blue Star and Port Line —had plans to beat the

thieves, the newspaper said. They would install weighbridges at docks to weigh trucks as they arrived and again as they left with their loads. A security officer said: “Our big problem is to spot the men who overload the trailers. Sometimes it is done in error. Often it is part of a crooked deal.” Police believe most of the meat was smuggled out of the docks after collusion between some of the checkers aboard ships and trailers. Drivers passed the meat to middlemen outside the docks who then sold it at a cut price to butchers.