Page 5 Advertisements Column 2

Taranaki Daily News, 27 December 1917, Page 5

A series of thefts have recently been committed in Sjadney (banking chambers, tlie similarity of circumstances in all the cases suggesting that they have ail been committed by the same persons. The thieves have been operating among the customers at the receiving tellers' desks, and from the remark which one of the confederates attracts the attention of the intended victim, the police 'Have designated the thieves the "excuse-me" gang. 'While woman was waiting at the counter in the Bank of Australasia, a stranger drew her attention to a IBs n6te on the floor, suggesting that she had dropped it. She picked ft up, and then discovered t&at £3O, which was it her elbow, had gone. An officer of tiie Sydney Council went to the head office of the Bank of New South Wales with about £3OOO to deposit. [Fie was at tie counter arranging his slips prior to paying in the money, which, for the most part consisted of bundles of £IOO in notes, when something attracted his attention. Glancing round, he noticed a £1 note on the floor, close to his feet. He stooped down and picked it up, and when he checked his money a few minutes later he discovered that one of the bundles of notes was missing. This class of theft originated in Melbourne a few monthes ago, when a man was robbed of £l5O, and it is thought likely that the men responsible for that theft are now operating in Sydney. Apparently two mon are doing the work. One of them places the note on the floor of the bank, and as soon as he'lias attracted the attention of the depositor to it his confederate commits the robliar? anil slitu awar.