PROPERTY VALUED AT £1600 STOLEN FROM LUGGAGE

Chronicle (Levin), 24 January 1947, Page 5

PROPERTY VALUED AT £1600 STOLEN FROM LUGGAGE

-Press Association

-» HEAYY LOSS FOR TWO WOMEN

By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, Jan. 23. Detectives in New Zealand and Canada are engaged in traeing thieves avIio stole expensive articles of clothing and jewellery from tlie luggage of an Auckland woman and her daughter who recently travelled to the United States, -where the latter married a navy lieutenant. The property was conservatively valued at £1600. The vietims of the theft are Mrs. L. Lloyd- Jones, Of O 'Neill 's Avenue, Takapuna, and her daughter, Marv, now hlrs. James Grant, of Norfolk, Virginia. The missing property, which was paeked in two wai'drobe trunks and a large hatbox reinforced with steel, included a mink coat valued at £1000 belonging'to Mrs. Grant and a wliite Russian ermine cape worth £500 belonging to her mother. The couple consigned the- luggage to San Francisco in the ship Flyaway, which sailed from Auckland on August 3. On September 18 they flew to the United States, hoping that the belongings would be waiting on their arrival. Devious Journeyings. I Owing to the maritime strike in the United States the ship was diverted to Victoria, British Columbia. As the luggage was declared "blaek" it could not be brought into the United States, and arrangements were made to have it stored. When Mrs. Lloyd- Jones was about to return to New Zealand she telephoned instruetions for the luggage to be sent back to New Zealand on the Wanganella. The luggage arrived just before Christmas, but remained on the wharves until it was delivered at the owner's home on January 10. Mrs. Lloyd- Jones states that she was amazed at the battered appearance of her trunk. A crowbar had apparently been used to force it open. When Mrs. Grant 's luggage arrived in Virginia the £1000 mink coat was missing. It is believed that the thieves were experts, who fully appfeciated the value of the luggage. Jewellery stolen included a jade necklace with a diamond cluster valued at £60 and a lalique necklace worth £10. Little of the luggage was insured.