AMAZING DISCOVERY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4852, 13 July 1925, Page 3

AMAZING DISCOVERY.

WHOLESALE THIEVING. WAREHOUSE PACKED WITH LOOT. The curiosity of a lone constable led to the amazing discovery that a very large and fully equipped warehouse near the waterfront of the City of New York was nothing less than a don of- thieves, whose operations have been mystifying the police for many months. So well organised was the place with ■ offices and all appurtenances necessary to the conduct of a large business that it was evident the band was directed by what the criminal investigation .author Pies call a “master mind.” The constable, casually interested in a lorry loaded with woollen goods, which drove up to the place at seven, o'clock in the morning as he patrolled his beat, strolled after it as the Warehouse doors opened and the lorry rolled in. The big doors were hastily shut in his face. SUSPICIOUS. SLAM. The constable had .suspected nothing wrong, and probably intended only to get into conversation with two ineir on the vehicle. But the slamming of the door put him' on the alert. He telephoned his station, <wl in a very few minutes a squad of reserves arrived and smashed their way into tne place, where there was no response to their summons to admit them. Loot, that a hurried inventory estimated anywhere from £lsoiooo to £200',000, .was found. It consisted of ■ vast stores ot silks, velvets, woollens, tobacco, and other merchandise of many kinds. There were twenty-two motor lorries, three motor vans, and two. light delivery waggons, all recently stolen, some of., them still piled with goods with which they were loaded When the thieves made off with them. One had a full load of cigars and cigarettes. In the storerooms, neatly and systematically arranged, were the proceeds of numerous burglaries. A great quantity of business correspondence, _• papers, and well-kept books were Ji the offices. NOT “DRY.” It the cellar were 100 barrels of alcohol and two stills of the latest model. Two men who pretended that they were employed as night watchmen .and that they had been asleep were arrested. There was plain evidence, however, that the offices had been vacated in a hurry, and further search there resulted in the discovery -of a trap door that led by a secret staircaise to an exit on the street in the rear. . Through this the “master mind ■'and his lieutenants had made their •sec ape.