A CLEVER GANG.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 282, 28 November 1925, Page 10

A CLEVER GANG.

MYSTERY MAID THEFTS. LAST ONE WORTH £10,000. (from Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 23. The third mail robbery in three months, into which the police, and postal detectives have been inquiring for iiiotc than a week, has got the authorities baffled, and they admit that they are up against a determined and mysterious gang. The latest registered packet to disappear was consigned from Newcastle to Sydney last Monday night. On paper the theft was impossible, for three officers swear that the registered packet was placed in the bag at Newcastle, and that they saw tbe bag loaded on the train. Tlie guard of the train "is positive that it was not interfered with on the journey to Sydney, while three responsible officers at the Sydney end are certain that the-packet was not in the bag when it reached headquarters. And when the latter three officers inspected the bag on arrival at Sydney 'it .was still tied and sealed.

The" packet was worth in reality about £10,000, for it contained, in addition to diamond rings worth £300 ..and cash and negotiable documents valued at another £100, cheques and drafts for £0000, £700, and numerous" smaller amounts.'

Another serious.aspect,of the .theft is that included in the packet were numerous letters addressed to divisional returning • officers of many electorates Ju. New South .Wales. Though these absentee votes are not; likely to cause any hold-up in the declaration of the poll, they make the returns incomplete.

Like all the other mail-thefts of recent months, no sign of the packet has been discovered, nor haA-e the detectives any clues to the identity .of the thieves. Their ramifications are evidently widespread, for the last haul was made from -tlie Junee mail, £1000 in notes being taken from, the registered packet on that line. Police have recovered two of those notes. One had been cashed in the city, while the other was found in some sewage at Arncliffe. Determined efforts are being made to clear the thefts up, for as.tlie position stands the whole of ■ the mail services are menaced.