ARCOS RAID

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3644, 28 May 1927, Page 1

ARCOS RAID

OPENING THE STRONG-BOOMS PROCESS OF CUTTING THROUGH. TWO TONS OF PLANT USED. Cablegrams from London to the Sydney Sun, dated May 14tlr. give further details of the opening of the firm’s huge strong-rooms. Early on Friday afternoon, May 13th, says one cable message, the police secured evidence justifying the clearance of the whole building, regardless of the damage done to the fabric. Each of the strongrooms outside the safes in the basement has a doorway 10ft. high, Bft. long and 7 inches thick. Experts stated that the swiftest method of opening them would be to cut in, and accordingly two tons of plant, including 20 drilling machines, and a complete oxy-acetylene welding plant were procured. * After the expiration of the • three hours’ ultimatum, the chief of Arcos, Ltd., was given an additional halfhour’s grace in which to surrender the keys, but he still refused, whereupon the waiting engineers immediately attacked the 7 feet of concrete flanking the strongroom. They used three road-breaking pneumatic drills, a thundering 300-horse-power motor in the roadway outside feeding air through a 6-inch armoured pipe. At 1 a.m. it was announced that an entrance had been cut to the first strongroom. AMAZING SCENE. There was an amazing scene in Moorgate during the early morning as clouds of concrete dust poured out of Arcos, Ltd’s, lower windows from which torch signals were flashed to the engineers controlling the air-compres-sors in the roadway. Squads of expert drillers, all wearing eyeshades, relieved each other every quarter of an hour, the confined space necessitating one man holding the 42-inch drill to his shoulder while another operated it. Among the trophies of the night’s search were several ugly-looking knuckle-dusters, a collection of leadloaded batons and also a steel life-pre-server more deadly than any specimen in Scotland Yard’s “Black Museum.” WANTED DOCUMENT. The document for which the police are searching was missed in May 11 from a Government department. The police", having discovered that it had been secured by Soviet agents, employed an ingenious ruse to defeat the Soviet’s counter-espionage, spreading a report that many officers of the special branch had gone to seaports to await revolutionary aliens, this resulting in the Soviet officials being very surprised when the police arrived on the Arcos premises. NAVAL SECRETS. The Daily Sketch declares that there is a strong indication that documents of supreme naval importance to Britain were the main object of the search and that a large proportion of the informa lion on which the police acted emanted from recent raids on Soviet centres in Paris, which has become the chief centre of anti-Bolshevik activity. A strict watch is being maintained in British naval dockyards to which detectives have been despatched, especially Chatham and Devonport. The Daily Sketch also asserts that it has been informed that the searchers discovered correspondence implicating certain members of the House of Commons. CHARRED DOCUMENT. When attacking the second strongroom, the engineers found the concrete heavily reinforced by metal work, necessitating the constant use of a blowdetectives, assisted by linguists, remained in the building, examining seven tone of papers. It is hoped, by means of a chemical process, to read a charred document in which much interest is taken. The police encountered tho utmosthostility from some male members of the staff, rendering physical force, m certain instances, unavoidable. LABOUR AND COMMUNISTS. The. Daily Mail in a leading article says: “Mr Arthur Henderson, who was Home Secretary in the Laboui Government, blundered gravely m having anything to do with the Soviet Charge d’Affaires. Nothing hurt Labour more than its members showing enemies of Britain that they could always expect Labours countenance and support. ~ , “Labourites did not Lrouble when Britishers were murdered and outraged, and did not lift a voice when the Bolsheviks attacked the British Embassy in Petrograd and killed Captain Cromie, hut demanded British intervention to save Communist assassins and gunmen when Chang leolin raided the Embassy at Pekin.