GANG TRACKING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 292, 4 August 1932, Page 8

GANG TRACKING

MODERN DISGUISES ADOPTED BY SCOTLAND YARD DETECTIVES NOT ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL Scotland Yard is not a theatrical costumier's which sends men out in disguises of the false wig and moustache order as a general rule of routine, but there are individual officers of the organisation who have often .seored over the underworld by their ability to be mistaken for anytliing but a square-tied man of the law; and on special occasions definite disguise has been resorted to in an effort to pierce a particularly thick veil of mystery — generally when all other methods have failed. One ex-officer, on finding hhnself beaten at every move he made in his , efforts to discover the plans of a • notorious London gang a few years ! ago, concluded that he was being beaten because he was too well-known ' and too easily recognised — he was a ; fine figure of a man physically. | So he went home and rummaged | among his own and his friends' old clothes. Without saying why he wanted them, he acquired a weird and wonderful collection of garments which he proceeded to treat shame- ■' fully, ripping here, soiling there, until he had as unsavoury a set of garments any man could conceive. Then he grew a 10-days' stubble and donned the clothes. The' change was astonishing, particularly when he assumed a stooping, hang-dog sort of gait he had perfected. Ordinarily, a man nattily dressed and keen on his personal appearanee, he was quite unrecognisable in the rig-out in which j he sallied forth. Quick Results ' It served his purpose in an amazing way. Three nights' work — and then he thankfully went home to a clean shave and a bonfire of the ragbag piclcings he had been wearing. He had managed to learn enough to enabled him to have a squad of officers present when the gang did their next "job" and to take them redhanded. It broke that particular coterie of crooks once and for all. In the raiding of West End night clubs and similar establishments, officers wearing. evening dress are nowadays generally employed. Paradoxial as it may seem, this is actually a disguise without being one. The officers selected for this work are young fellows who can not only wear dinner kit as to the manner born, but are to the manner born — quite a number of highly-edueated young men are to be found in the force to-day. Well-groomed, natural, and at ease, they sally forth in gleaming shirt fronts and sillc hats and obtain the desired entrance — and information — without raising the slightest flutter of suspicion, whereas their brothers ' of a generation a^o would have been spotted at once as obvious policemen togged out for the occasion. In at least two crimes of fairly recent date disguise has been used by the police. In one, a girl was slain on a heath on the outskirts of Lon- ; don and the suspicion arose that the i crim© was the work of a maniac who might reasonably be supposed to be unable to resist the temptation of attacking any other lonely young woj man he might encounter some dark i night in that vicinity. Aecordingly, a number of muscular young officers I went forth suitably attired as girls. It was a shrewd move, but it came to nought, and the mystery of this girl's I I death was never solved. , In one other instance — a murder which has also remained a mystery — a squad of specially picked young officers moved about among the West End crowds in all sorts of male and f emale disguises, seeking one particular clue that was missing. Here again, however, as I have indicated, some good acting was wasted.