DUMMY MINES.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1926, Page 3

DUMMY MINES.

DETECTIVES' RAIDS. SYDNEY, May 20. While the story of the war against gold stealers in Western Australia is full of thrilling adventures, it has not hitherto been sullied by anything approaching the savagery ol the murder of the two detectives at Ivalgoorlie. It may have been that the strikingly tolerant public attitude ovards the gold stealing has ordinarily deprived tho business of the desperate atmospheio which surrounds robbery. The only sensations to which the public have ■ been treated hitherto were t’he surprises which’the detectives sprung on gangs which wre carrying on illicit gold-dealing on an extensive scale. It was the practice in some cases for men to work small plants, ostensibly mining ore drawn from their own mines, which were kept fully working. The whole business of these concerns was carried on with every appearance of being above board, even to the returns of ore crushed -and gold won, which were supplied to the Mines Department. Everything was all right, save the gold—which was stolen. The gangs were receivers cm a large scale, cloaking their activities under the guise of respectability'. Two big organisations of this knd were raided by the poliee a few years ago. In one case the detectives secreted themselves in an abandoned hut, and. with powerful glasses, kept watch on the operations of one plant day' and night for a couple of months. The late Detective-Sergeant Pitman, one of the men brutally’ clone to death, was engaged in this ease. A peculiar result of the operations of these pseudo mines was revealed when, some years ago, the Department of Mines, in an attempt to give a fillip to prospecting decided to furnish details from its official returns of shows that had been worked and abandoned while there was still gold in sight. It as then realised that this data would be far from reliable, as the returns of gold won from a good many mines were false, the figures given being of stolen gold, and. therefore, no indication of the possibilities of the locality.