NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1921, Page 3

NEWS BY MAIL.

TRAIN THIEVES. PARIS, June 1

The French police have arrested three men alleged to be members of one of the most notorious gangs of international thieves, whose speciality seems to have been robbing passengers in the Continental expresses. British, and Americans are believed to have been their principal victims.

On Saturday, as the midday train to Calais and Loudon was having Paris, a special railway detective noticed a man named Ferdinand Jacob, a notorious criminal, enter a first -class carriage. A moment later Jacob came out carrying all expensvie fur coat and was arrested. Sotiie minutes afterwards a woman passenger complained that her fur coat worth £509 l ad been stolen.

“By j strange coincidence,” the police commissarv told me this afternoon.

arrested Jacob in 1905 for a similar theft, Jacob, who acknowledged that he had been convicted 10 times for railway thefts, gave the names of his accomplices, and a few hours later .Maurice Martin and Ferdinand Rippert were arrested by fnv men and charged with having helped Jiioh to dispose of the articles he stole.

“The police have recovered a huge number of articles taken recently from expresses at various stations by this gang.”

I was shown 10 leather suit eases and toilet cases with silver and tortoiseshell fittings, each of them worth from £BO to £2OO. All of these the prisoners, I was told, confessed to having stolen. A dressing-case has been found, but the jewels* worth £4,000, which it contained when stolen are missing. Much of the stolen property is obviously of British origin. There are travelling clocks from Bond-street and Regentstreet, a lace handkerchief marked “Patsy,” a dark blue leather suit case in a blue canvas cover with English lever lock and ivory fittings. Another suit case is of violet leather with the initials “M.L.C.” The jewellery includes a platinum ring with a single brilliant valued at £BOO. The French police are anxious that travellers who have lost property in France within the last few months should forward to the special commissary at the Gare du Nord a full description of the missing articles. j