WISP OF FUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 161, 9 July 1926, Page 11

WISP OF FUR.

LEADS POLICE TO CACHE.

STOLEN RABBIT FURS,

HAUL WORTH £1000.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, July 2. A wisp of fur on a fence outside an empty house led railway detectives and civilian police to the recovery of £1000 worth of stolen rabbit skins on Thursday. This wholesale find was responsible "also for the arrest of two men —railway employees—who have been charged with stealing them. The discovery was the culmination of a long series of investigations into the disappearance of shipments of skins from country centres.* Since May 1 it is estimated that £3000 worth of skins have vanished from trucks in which they were consigned to Sydney for sale. One case in particular illustrates the mystery with which their disappearance was surrounded. On Saturday special attention was paid to a shipment of £1000 worth of skins from Coonambie to Sydney. The earliest opportunity at which the van— one of louvre pattern—could be tampered with, was at Enfield marshalling yards. Railway officials found that the van was packed tight with bags of skins when it arrived there, and that it was contrived by someone that it should be shunted on to a comparatively quiet siding ready for marshalling on Sunday or Monday. An almost continuous' watch was kept on it, yet on Monday, whei the van reached the Darling Harbour goods yards, there were only six of thj original 68 bags of ekins left ii it. A horde of detectives descended on the Enfield yards. It was certain that nothing had been removed from the yards in a lorry, such as would be necessary to have carted away such a large shipment. Nosing around for a clue, one of the detectives noticed a tiny wisp of rabbit fur on the fence of an empty house facing the Enfield yards. Enfield does not grow rabbits, and he jumped to the correct conclusiou. Breaking into the empty house, he found one of the inside rooms packed high with the bags of skins taken from the van on Saturday. Obviously the empty house had been use' as a depot, from which the skins were carted into the city and sold. Two arrests were made soon afterwards, the detectives taking into custody two railway employees. In the city the residue of other shipments stolen were found in several warehouses, where they had been lodged for sale on the open market.