LOOTING CARGO

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10616, 15 June 1920, Page 7

LOOTING CARGO

ENORMOUS ANNUAL LOSSES. The statement was made by a Sydney police officer apropos of steading on the wharves that hardly a ship that arrived at Sydney escaped the thief immediately prior to, during, or soon after the end of the voyage. The public, he said, did not realise how extensive the operations of the thieves were. The value of goods stolen from the ships coming to Australia, or trading round the coast, aggregated roughly a million pounds, and it had been going ori for years. Tho thieves work with extraordinary cleverness, and, though they do not operate under the cover of darkness, they managed to sort out tho valuables from securely-nailed cases, closing them up again so neatly that no one would believe they had been tampered with. "The story of the piano and the bricks," he said, "best illustrates the expertnoss of the class of thief. A Sydney firm ordered a piano from New York, and it was packed and dispatched upon its journey across tho United States railways. TJie caso arrived, in Sydney in duo course, but when it was opened there was no piano in it. Instead it contained hundreds of bricks—enough to weigh about tho same as the piano. « _ The bricks bore the brand of a Chicago maker on them,, and when investigations were commenced it was naturally thought the exchange had been made in the great meat-killing centre. But this was found not to ho tho caso. Millions of bricks had been sent from Chicago bo San Francisco for shipment. . and the piano had been removed in the Pacific Coast city. There arc some of these bricks about now. T saw one of them the other day. "Ono well-known firm which ordered a large consignment of hats from an English company found, when- the cases were opened, not hats, but thousands of copies of London papers. The lads on the wharves were reading the pa,pors for months afterwards. Another ease from America, supposed' to contain blouses, arrived at the Sydney house full of bits of light wood, seaweed, and a Christmas card."