FARMS RAIDED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 July 1938, Page 3

FARMS RAIDED

operations by thieves IN SCOTLAND SERIOUS LOSSES REPORTED Organised gangs of sheep rustlers using camouflaged lorries are raiding farms in Scotland. They work so fast that the stolen animals —mostly sheep, but sometimes calves and poultry—are disposed of before the owners know they are missing. In 1935, 947 sheep were reported as being stolen, and last year this figure had risen to 1,676. But since the beginning of this year the rustling has been so great that county police are planning road checks on all suspicious vehicles. The raiders are thought to.be using fast modern sheep trucks camouflaged as furniture vans. The police are hampered by the fact that night and day the main roads swarm with legitimate furniture lorries operating between London and Glasgow, and branching northwards from there to Aberdeen, Fort William, Inverness and Oban. In Glencoe, since January, cattle thieves have stolen more than 400 sheep, mostly from small crofts. Already vans have been stopped in Glencoe and searched by the police, who are at present considering placing a patrol at either end of the 30-mile long glen and stopping every vehicle coming out.