POLICE RAID

Hokitika Guardian, 18 August 1933, Page 2

POLICE RAID

WELLINGTON PAKAPOO ARRESTS.

' EUROPEANS AND CHINESE. {Per Press Assoaiation — Copyright.) WELLINGTON, August 17. A simultaneous raid was carried out by.a party of police this afternoon on five houses in Taranaki Street, where it was suspected pakapoo was being played. Tile police made a clean sweep of every house, arresting in all thirty men, nine of them Chinese, and the remainder Europeans. They will appear in the police court to-morrow morning.

The raid was remarkable mainly for its well organised swiftness. The raiding party wa s composed of Senior-Ser-geant Scott, Sergeant Black,' and nine constables, making about two officers to each house. The houses entered are in a group in Taranaki Street. The police entered the houses simultaneously. There had obviously been no warning to the occupants. No trouble was experienced, the men giving themselves up without any attempt at opposition. In a .very short time a crowd of several hundreds, with a good proportion of Chinese, had gathered outside the houses, but there was little excitement.

The arrested meil were token to Mount Cook police station, necessitating three separate trips by.a police van. a largo number of marked tickets uuu other exhibits were also taken away. Five Chinese, one from- each house, will be charged in court to-morrow morning with using the premises as common gaming houses, and the other twenty-five, who comprise four Chinese and twenty-one Europeans, will be charged with being found on the premises without lawful excuse.