TALE OF PIRACY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 158, 16 April 1928, Page 5

TALE OF PIRACY

GOLD SEIZED AT MIDNIGHT. RUSSIANS BOARD STEAMER. (United Press Association—Copyright). LONDON, April 14. The story of the transhipment of over £1,000,000 worth of gold in midchannel at midnight reads like an oldtime incident of smuggling and piracy. The Soviet Government shipped ingots valued at £1,040,000 to America, and a French bank claimed the money on the ground that »t was the same gold that it deposited in the Russian State Bank from 1015 to 1917. The French Government obtained an injunction in the Amerioan Courts preventing the money being landed there. The gold was re-shipped to Bremen by the steamer Dresden, due to call at Cherbourg, where it was expected the French authorities would seize the gold. Russians chartered a steamer and awaited the Dresden six miles off Falmouth, outside territorial waters. They wirelessed a plan of campaign to the Dresden, and went alongside shortly after midnight, when the money was. transhipped without a hitch and with the utmost speed. The Russian steamer then steamed off to an unknown destination. —Australian Press Association.

CAPTAIN RIDICULES STORY. Later. Tho Paris correspondent of the "Sunday Express" says that the Dresden has cabled to Cherbourg: "Ship now going to Bremen. Gold intact.' The captain laughed uproariously at the story of the alleged transhipment of Soviet gold in mid-channel. He said: "Gold is part of my cargo, and I would not allow French authorities or anyone else to remove it. I shall only relinquish responsibility for it when it is handed over to the consignee at Bremen." —Australian Press Association.