CHARGE OF THEFT OF £l0,000

Hokitika Guardian, 10 June 1927, Page 4

CHARGE OF THEFT OF £lo,ooo

AN AKKEST MADE IN THE WAIKATO. A I C KI. AND, June 8. A sensational arrest was made at Claudelands. Hamilton, yesterday, when Detective Sweeney and Constable Saunders, of Hamilt ni, act ing ;l provisional warralil. nii-rslc.l Jo- , ,p!, |,'osier, aged fourlv-fonr, on a. char-C of stealing £IO.OOO the propelt\ of the British Government. (Mister is described as a traveller. He is a son of tlm late Pastor Easier, win formerly lived in Waihi and Hamilton. Foster formerly lived at AWiibi. hut left the Dominion twenty years ago for England. He had been in Hamilton for some weeks bet ore he was recognised by Constable maunders, win know him as a hoy.

Details of the robbery in connection with which the arrest has been made are that four registered packages, containing Treasury notes of a value of £IO.OOO were among the contents of a mail-bag stolen in transit between Cardiff and I,ondm on the evening of February 2nd., tho notes being sent by Lloyds Bank at Cardiff to the head cilice in .London. The missing hag was despatched by the Great Western dining-car express at'o.3” p.m. the train being timed to arrive at Paddington at 0.10 p.m. The van was opened only twice.

The bag. ono of a heap of twentvone. Mas placed in a mail van at ( ai,lilf l,v postal officials. The van was backed and opened for a few minutes only at Newport and Swindon, when other mails were added to the pile. The only other stop between Cardiff and London was at Heading, hat no mails were taken on there, and the van was therefore not opened.

On the arrival of the train at Pad-

dington. the hag in question was missing. It was one of what are known as “Jinal’’ hags, whioh are tied with pink labels to distinguish them. Advice from Scotland; Yard postal officials say that there were three ol these on the train when it left Cardiff. When the contents of the van were cheeked at Paddington only two pink label Cardiff hags were found. Immediate inquiries were telephoned t,i Cardiff, and, meanwhile, the train was searched from end to end. Cardiff officials were emphatic that the bag was placed in the train, and all subsequent inquiries confirmed this statement.

Cabled advice was received in New Zenlan don May 31st. that Scotland Yard had sent a wireless message to the captain of a steamer bound for New Zealand, asking him to prevent from landing a man alleged ( > he concerned in a robbery, who was travelling to the Dominion with his family. It is understood that the man referred to was not on the steamer when it birthed in New Zealand. Foster, who is married, was charged at the Magistrate’s Court this morning with the, theft of £IO,OOO from a mail van in England on February 2nd. and also with receiving currency of that amount, knowing it to have been illegally obtained. On the application of the police he was remanded to appear at Wellington on June loth.