TALE OF PIRACY

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19286, 16 April 1928, Page 9

TALE OF PIRACY

RUSSIANS SEIZE GOLD. HUGE FORTUNE CHANGES HANDS. (tTHITED PRESS ASSOCIATIOK—BY ELSCTRJB TELEGRAPH—COPIRIOHT.) (Received April 15th, 5.6 p.m.) LONDON, April 14. The story of tho transhipment of over £1,000,000 worth of gold in midchnunel at midnight reads like an old. time incident of smuggling and piracy. The Soviet Government shipped ingots valued at £1,040,000 to America and a French bank claimed tho money on the ground that * was tho sama gold that it deposited in the Russian State Bank from 1915 to 1917. The French Government obtained an injunction in the American Courts preventing the money being landed there. The gold was re-shippod to Bremen by tho steamer Dresden, due to call at Cherbourg, whero it was expected the French authorities would seize the gold.

Russians chartered a steamer and awaited the Dresden six miles off Falmouth, outside territorial waters. They wirelessed a plan of campaign to tho Dresden, and went alongside shortly after midnight, when the money waa transhipped without a hitch and with the utmost speed. The Russian steamer then steamed off to an unknown destination.—Australian Press Association.

CAPTAIN RIDICULES STORY.

Later. The Paris correspondent of th» "Sunday Express" says that the Dresden has cabled to .Cherbourg: "Ship now going to Bremen. Gold intact." The captain laughed uproariously all the story of the alleged. transhipment of Soviet gold in mid-channel. He said: "Gold is part of my carm» and I would not allow French authorities or anyone else' to remove it. I shall only relinquish responsibility for it when it is handed oyer to the consignee at Bremen."—-Australian Presi Association.