INTER-STATE THIEVES

Hokitika Guardian, 8 April 1920, Page 1

INTER-STATE THIEVES

APPARENT INTERCHANGE OF BOOTY.

SYDNEY, March 26

The Sydney detectives arc proud of the fact that they have laid bare a system followed by a gang of clever thieves, who appear to have been working successfully for a long time between Melbourne and Sydney. These gentlemen specialised in goods from warehouses and shops. Robberies of business premises have been increasingly common during the past year, andi for a while the police seemed baffled. Warehouses would he swiftly and silently opened and large quantities of soft goods, boots, leather, fancy goods, and suchlike merchandise would be removed, evidently by motor vehicles, and no trace of thieves or goods could he found.

It appears that the thieves planned to evade the police system. When such ■goods were stolen in Melbourne, for instance ,every detective and constable was on tlie qui vivo for the appearance of .similar goods in second-hand sliops or small shops of doubtful character. Tile goods, therefore, became very difficult to dispose of ,without arousing tho suspicions of honest traders. So they devised a big system of operating m both Sydney and Melbourne, and of sending the stolen goods across to the other city for disposal. Tho crooks calculated, and they were right, that goods stolen in Sydney would not he readily recognised, in Melbourne, and vice versa. They gave some attention to Adelaide and Brisbane, hut most of their work was done in the big cities, where, of course, they were much safer. The police got on their tracks eventually. It appears that detectives have been quietly busy for some time at Albury, on the border, making a careful analysis of goods passing to and fro. As a result of information thus gathered, they made a raid in Sydney onSunday Five detectives went out to Bondi, quietly surrounded a house and pounced. They arrested, within, two persons whom they believe are clever criminals, and they collected £2OOO worth of silk goods, which they believe were stolen

in Melbourne. Another party of detectives went to a house in another suburb and there recovered £250 worth of shirts, stolon, a few days earlier from a Sydney factory. It, is believed they wore all ready to go to Melbourne. The suspected thief is a man recently arrested on another charge, and who is suspected of being in the intcr-Stat? business. Other arrests are expected in ■Melbourne.