KOEPENICKING AS A CULT.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9072, 12 February 1908, Page 8

KOEPENICKING AS A CULT.

Vienna, December 22. Bank notes to the value of £llOO and a savings bank book worth £2OO were yesterday stolen from the Vienna arsenal by a trick worthy of ‘ ‘ Captain Koepenick. ” A young man* wearing the uniform of a lieutenant accountant drove up to the arsenal in a cab '.at nine o’clock in the morning, and entering the adjutant’s office, which was crowded at the time, presented himself to the officer on duty as Lieutenant Gold bach, of the account department of artillery. He said he had been sent with two other officers, who were waiting below, to fetch the money from the safe of the 2nd Artillery Regiment. This is the usual procedure, and the pseudolieutenant received the keys of the strong room, for which he gave a receipt. No one noticed that his two comrades, for whom the regulations provided, were mythical, and he opened the triple doors of the strong room. Then he forced one of the iron-bound money boxes with a jemmy which he had concealed. Having obtained possession of the notes and the bank book, which the box contained, he relocked the strong-room and restored the keys. He drove away in the same cab to the savings bank, and withdrew the deposits of £2OO. The theft was discovered, half an hour later, but no trace of the man’s whereabouts has been found.