WHERE THIEVES HIDE THEIR LOOT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 434, 27 January 1912, Page 2

WHERE THIEVES HIDE THEIR LOOT.

WHY SOME EX-CRIMINALS ARE

ROLLING IN RICHES

It is well known to the police that there are a number of ex-convicts who arc literally rolling in wealth and driving about London and the provinces to-day in their own motorcars and carriages, said a detective to the writer the other day. The majority of these men are old embezzlers, and there seems to be little doubt that they are able to live well and keep going lavishly-furn-ished residences because the money they stole was hidden by them before being arrested and sent to prison. It may surprise you to know that thousands of pounds' worth of valuable property looted by thieves from various sources lie buried in odd corners of Britain, and will probably only be recovered by the men themselves on their release. Cases are constantly occurring where an embezzler, after running off with a large sum in gold, refuses to divulge the hiding-place of his ill-gotten gains. He is sent to prison, and the "loot" remains .unrecovcred. In nine cases out of ten the embezzler, finding arrest imminent, buries his stolen property and digs it up again when he comes out of prison. There is a. man renting a big house in a fashionable suburb who some years ago was a junior cashiei in an American bank. One day he disappeared, and with him the sum of £50,000. Knowing too well that, sooner or later, he would be hunted down by the police, he got several of his friends to invest the money he had embezzled in various shares Although the American police made exhaustive inquiries when he was ar rested, they failed to ascertain what had become of the plunder. The thief was sentenced to several years' imprisonment, and when he was released he learnt to his surprise, that the companies and mines in which he had invested money had turned out so well that his shares were worth a fortune. He sold out, and now enjoys nearly a quarter of a million of money. A man who was for many years ar inmate of one of our prisons is now living in affluence in a town up north. He was imprisoned for embezzling £70,000 from his employers, and he declared at the trial that he had spent every penny of it. For some time after his release from jail he lived in a cheap lodginghouse at Hoxton, and then one day he declared that he had come into a fortune,, a brother in Australia having died and left him some thousands. As a matter of fact, although the police had no proof, he had recovered the money which he had embezzled years before.

A man of considerable means, now living in the States, served a term of imprisonment for forgery, having obtained £15,000 by means of false cheques. Not a penny of the money was recovered by the police. During the forced confinement of the thief his wife, in pursuance of a previously agreed plan, went out to service in a gentleman's family. As soon ■as the husband was liberated, however, his wife resigned her position, ■and the pair sailed immediately for the Colonies. It ultimately came to ight that the money which had been stolen by means of the forged cheques nad been buried under the flooring of a room in a Soho house.

Some fifteen years ago a Hindu merchant, who had come to London no make purchases of gems, was robbed of many thousands of pounds. The thieves carried their ill-gotten wealth to a cheap tenement in Whiter :hapel, but, finding the police hot on their track, they carried the 'loot' one dark night to a remote spot on the Essex marshes and secretly frurisd it. They then disappeared, and have not been seen since. It is believed that the money remains to this day where it was buried. Not so very long ago a burglary was committed by a couple of wellknown thieves, who got away with about £SOO in coin and bank-notes. They were arrested, but refused to state what they had done with the money, although one darkly hinted that it had been buried in a garder in a suburb of London.—"Tit Bits."