BLACKMAILERS

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1930, Page 5

BLACKMAILERS

A GERMAN SEN ATI ON. • : [United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.] BERLIN, August 30. Threats of death and financial ruin to a city of 125,000 people, followed by a chase of detectives in a raihvay train, were episodes in a drama enacted at Magdebury. A gang of blackmailers offered the city the alternative of paying a big ransom, or having its gardens and fields ravaged by an insect pest, and all of its reservoirs I poisoned. The blackmailers added that they proposed to . let loose a SAvarm of Colorado beetles, Avhich Avould destroy the 4 Magdebury potato crop, which is the most important one in the district. The£ gang’s ultimatum arrived on Wednesday, and included ? Intricate instructions as to lioav the money Avas to be handed over. Tile detectives followed out these instructions in detail, hoping to track the blackmailers. They finally threw a packet, supposedly containing money, from a moving train at a spot iiidi-' cated by tile exhibition of a huge letter “A,” ,as instructed by the blackmailers. The detectives then pulled the train up, and rushed back to the spot, but a man on a bicycle; in the meantime, seirsed the packet and eccaped. Tile gang still eludes capture.