COAL STOLEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 307, 29 December 1931, Page 8

COAL STOLEN.

FROM TRAIN IN MOTION.

NEWCASTLE GANG CAUGHT.

POLICE HIDING IN TRUCKS,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 24

The police on the Newcastle (N.S.W.) coal fields have been worried for months in their efforts to trace coal thieves, but a raid this week not only resulted in 14 arrests, but also revealed the ingenious method by which the coal disappeared.

The coal is loaded on trucks at various collieries, and these trucks are hauled by a light engine to a central assembling yard at Hamilton Junction, there to be sent to various destinations throughout the State. The trucks are weighed before leaving the colliery, and again when being assembled. Discrepancies, sometimes amounting to as much as two and three tons from each colliery consignment, were discovered on reaching the assembling yards.

The only time that the trucks were not watched was while they*were being hauled from the colliery to the yards, and it was thought that while they were in transit the task of removing so much coal was impossible. But it was not.

The gang of coal thieves worked swiftly, and at a chosen spot, where the coal train was climbing a steep grade and necessarily went at a slower speed. Police secreted in the trucks saw as many as 40 men suddenly rush out from cover on the steep grade, and while half their number swung aboard the trucks and started shovelling the coal off the trucks, others spread out along the line and started gathering it and bagging it as it fell from the trucks. Waiting motor lorries had removed it from the spot within a short time, and so no trace was left.

The police set a trap, and when the work of thieving was at its height they had the train stopped, and made a dash at the gang. There was a scatter, but the police succeeded in arresting 14. So a lucrative scheme, which it has since been learned returned the gang a supplementary livelihood to the unemployed relief ration, was nipped in the bud. Several storekeepers and shops in the vicinity were selling the coal for the gang and giving. them in return food-

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