LONG DISTANCE THIEF.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 132, 5 June 1926, Page 11

LONG DISTANCE THIEF.

SPECIALISES IN MOTOR CARS.

TRAVELLED OVERLAND.

CAUGHT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 28. The career of the most amazing motor thief in Australia has reached a sudden ending by his arrest at Boor»bie, a lonely township in South Australia, on the Great Australian Bight. To have stolen a ear at Albany, West Australia, and driven it 400 miles through desert country, dodging habitations all the way as far as possible, is an amazing feat. But it is said to have followed another achievement in February, when the same man stole a car in Mildura, Victoria, and drove it 1400 males to Kalgoorlie, West Australia. Every police station from Albany to Adelaide had been advised of the bheft of Mr. Herbert Horton's car by a man who the police believed was making a dash across the Continent. Even the smallest police stations received a description of the car, and amongst these were those presided over by Constables at Penong and Fowler Bay, in South Australia. The progress of the stolen car was followed fitfully by stray reports which filtered through to the police, who had b,eeH unable, up to this week, to even sight the car, though they knew it was being driven across the States. They heard that it had been seen 100 miles from Eucla, near Wilson Bluff, on the Bight. Then, according to reports, the motorist veered from the coast and dashed north 100 miles to Loongana, on the trans-Continental line. A definite clue—the first —was the report that someone had entered the huts at the lonely 686 miles tank, taken about £90 m cash, and some clothing. This indicated to the police that the motor thief had again changed his course, and was making across the border for the South Australian coast. A conference was held between the constable from Fowler Bay and his mate from Penong. The former went east and the latter went west. They met at Bookabie, where they seized the car, with two men In it, when it drove in covered with dust. They recovered the money stolen from the huts at the Tank, also the clothes, and the two men were arrested and the car taken into the possession of the police. It is said that one of the men is identical with a garage hand who disappeared from a Mildura (Victoria) garage in February, with a car and £50. The car was later sold in Kalgoorlie, West Australia, and the police claim that the man in their custody is the man wanted in connection with that case.