SERIES OF THEFTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 190, 11 August 1921, Page 4

SERIES OF THEFTS.

ARREST AT WAIHI. i SMART WORK BY THE POLICE. rEy Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) WAIHI, this day. Information was received from the Te Arolia police yesterday relative to a. series of thefts committed at the former place, and resulted in a rather sensational arrest here of a young man named John McLean by Senior-sergeant O'Grady. A telephone message received directed suspicion to a Waihi resilient, and also stated that the individual named had visited the Palace Hotel, Te Aroha, from whence had been stolen a bag, the property of Mr. Walter Workman. Later in the day a police report was received from Paeroa announcing that the Paeroa railway station had been broken into and a number of handbags removed from one of the apartments. Some of these, the report added, had been recovered in a side street in tlie neighbourhood of the railway station. These hags had been cut open, the object apparently being to find any money they might contain, as the general contents had not been carried off. The other bags were found in the station yard, but these had not been interfered with.

Immediately on receipt of these reports Senior-sergeant O'Grady and Constable Whiting started on a tour of investigation, which by the afternoon ended in the suspected man being found at his lodgings in the outskirts of Waihi. After tlie arrest of McLean bad been effected diligent search of a room he occupied and of the lodgingliouse generally was made, culminating in a bundle of notes of various denominations being found wrapped up in a pocket handkerchief. A number of unopened letters were also discovered in close proximity to the spot where the money had apparently been hidden. A clue to discovery of the money was furnished by fresh-looking marks on the soil near a bottom board of the building beneath tlie room occupied by McLean. The police removed the hoard, and search revealed the presence of a handkerchief containing notes and a package of letters unopened. The letters, of which there were seven, bore the address of Mr. Grey Thorne George, farmer. Tirohia. Paeroa.

Inquiries this morning showed that another handbag had been stolen from the Hot .Springs Hotel at Te Aroha, being the property of Mr. (Ircy Thorne George. It was from this bag that the letters recovered under the lodgingliouse in Waihi had been extracted. Further thefts arc also alleged against McLean.