ROBBERS SURPRISED.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5374, 14 January 1929, Page 2

ROBBERS SURPRISED.

CAUGHT RED-HANDED. SUCCESSFUL POLICE RUSE. Seven Neapolitan highway r.o,bbers wefe caught red-handed while holding up the cashi’er of the Castellamare ironworks and relieving him of £5'500, the weekly wagjes of his firm, states a message received from a Rome; correspondent.

Every week the cashier carried the money from the bank to. the works, a distance of about two during the slack hours of the day. Neapolitan summers, are hot, and no o,iie ventures out of doors between one and three o’clock in the afternoon.

Carrying money in a closest cab is therefore considered quite safe, and the seven highwaymen felt convinced that it would be equally safe to rob the cashiejr. They parked the car in a sandy corner of the r.oad, waited for, the cashier’s .cab to. pass, and merely asked him to hand over his money. The cashier, and the cabman showed no fight.

Suddenly one of the robbers sjignalled the approach of a motor-car, but they were reassured when they saw that the occupants were women with rosary beads round their necks and holy imag;e;s pinned in their, clothes, a sign th at were on a pHsrinrage to the nearby church of the Madonna di Montevergine. It is well known that Neapolitan peasant women are no,t deterred by the summer sun from their devotions, and that motorists gave lifts to the pilgrims.

Jup,t as the pilgrims’ ear passed by the highwaymen were astounded to see the peasant women jump out and rush at them, brandishing; heavy ser-i vice revolvers. The highway robbers had not recovered from their surprise before they found thmselves handcuffed.

It took some time; for. the Carabineers disguised as peasant women to discard their clothes and get into their uniforms, but no time was lost in escorting the seven men to prison.