Thieves who Hide their Loot.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 August 1910, Page 4

Thieves who Hide their Loot.

It is we'll known to the police that there are a number of ex-convicts who are litterally rolling in riches and driving about London and the provinces to-day in their own motor cars and carriages, said a detective to the writer the other day. The majority of these men are old embezzlers, and there seems to be little doubt that they are able to live well and keep going lavishly ifurnished residences because the money they stole was* hidden by them before beiing arrested! and sent to prison. It may surprise vou to know that thousands of pounds worth of valuable property looted bv thieves from various sources lies buried in odd corners of Britain and will probably only be recovered by die men the nselves on thoir release. Cases are constantly occurring where an embezzler after running off -with a large sum in gold refuses to divulge the hiding place of his ill-gotten gains. He is sent to prison and tho loot remains unrecovered. In nine cases cut of ten the embezzler finding ariest imminent buries his STOLEN PROPERTY and digs it up again when lie comes out of pilson A man who was for many years an inmate of one of our prisons is now living in alltuence in a town up north. He was imprisoned for em bszzling £70,000 from his employers and he declared at the trial tlial he had spent every penny of it. Foi some time after his release from gaol he lived in a cheap lodging-house at Hoxton and then one day he declarncl that he had come into a fortune, a brother in Australia having died ami left him some thousands. As a matter of fact, although, the police had no proof, he had <recoverdd, tho money which he had embezzled years before. A man of considerable means now living n the States served a term of imprisonment for forgery, having obtained £15,000 by means of false I'heqnes. Not a penny of the money was recovered by the police. During the forced confinement oi the thief his wife, in pursuance of a previously agreed plan, went out to servu-a in a gentleman's family. As soon as the husband was liberated, however, his wife resigned her position and t!ie pair sailed immediately for tin? colonies. It ultimately came to light that the money which had been stolen by means of the forged cheques had been buried undei the nooning in a Soho house. Some fifteen years ago a Flindu merchant who had COME TO LONDON t> make purchases of gems was robbed of many thousands of pounds. The thieves carried their ill-gotten wealth to a clieap tenement in Whilechapel, but finding the police hot on their track they carried the loot one dark night to a remote spot on the Essex mashes and secretly buried it. They then -disappeared ami have not been seen since. Tt is believed that the money remains to this clay where it was buried. Not s;> very long ago a burglary was committed bv a couple of wclknowu thieves who got away with about £5000 in coin and bank notos. They woie arrested, but refused to state what they had done with the money, although one darkly hinted that it had been hiivicd in a garden in a suburb of London.