GANG OF ROBBERS CAPTURED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 46, 3 June 1910, Page 3

GANG OF ROBBERS CAPTURED

BERLIN POUCH SECURE EIGHTEEN arrests. LOOT WORTH £200,000. Berlin, April 11. The Berlin .police, after months of investigation. in conjunction with the police of other European cities, have unearthed a 'gang of men and women who, for the last eight years, have victimised the guests 'of hotels throughout the length and breadth of Europe. This band was organised by Germans and controlled by a headquarters staff in Berlin. The members nix;rated on the most scientific lines. The plunder secured according to the police reports, is valued at £200,000. The founder and leader of the gang | was a former chimney-sweep, who plied his humble calling in a small town in ! Central Germany. He was arrested last year by the Berlin .police, with his niece and 'his "secretary," and since then fifteen other members of his band have been seized in different parts of the Continent. The chimney-sweep, tired of a, dull life and small earnings in his provincial home, conceived the idea of organising a gang of criminals of whom he himseli should be the leader. He started operations ia.s a burglar, utilising his knowledge of chimneys and 'his skill in climtting° to dizzy heights ami in creeping alooj narrow ledges at high altitudes to effect entrances to hotel rooms from the roofs of the buildings. BUSINESS A'XD SCIENCE. His eiiief lieutenant was a Pole, who spoke six languages with facility and was employed as a guide at Milan. These two men formed the nucleus of the band, which grew in dimensions till it included thirty active thieves and bußglars 'and a whole organisation of agents and receivers of stolen goods. The operations of the band were organised on strictly business lines. The proceeds of all robberies were handed over to the gang's office, I Which was shifted from place to place j to avoid police observation, and the pro- J j fits were diviaed according to five rules. ■ Once every year the whole band met at Nice at a restaurant to confer together, and on this 'occasion the spheres of ac- j tivity were mailked out and distributed among the members. One group would 'be assigned to the I Riviera" another to the Tyrol, another to the Italian towns frequented by wealthy foreigners, and so forth. Each croup remained in its appointed territory only for a brief time, when a general exchange was effected. In Paris the iband maintained a permanent ugent, who was known as the chief's secretary, and whose duty it was to watch the jewellers' shops in the Rue de la Bourse. He always knew when the jewellers' commercial travellers were starting on their tours and he telegraphed information to his 'accomplices in different places to he on the look-out for these lucrative victims. A £24,000 COUP. One of tin great coups effected by this method wtx-s on July 7, 1008, at the. Grand Hotel at Genoa, where M. Peruse, commercial traveller for the Paris ! firm of Messrs Ullnvann, was robbed of jewels to the value of £24,000. _ In the same way, thanks to information supplied from Paris, commercial travellers for Paris jewellers were successfully robbed wt Hamburg, Baden-B'aden, Berlin, Copenhagen, and several other places in Central Europe. The bulk of the stolen jewels was sent to the East, and the band had its own receivers at Cairo, Alexandria, Port 'Said, and other Oriental towns, where there were good opportunities for selling their .plunder. The trial of. these members of the band who have already been arrested will take place in the autumn, the delav 'being due to the great difficulties in collecting the necessary evidence of so many various crimes'.