“Thousands” lost through pillaging

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33534, 15 May 1974, Page 1

“Thousands” lost through pillaging

Pillaging at Lyttelton and other New Zealand ports had reached very serious proportions, Mr G. F. Whitty, chairman of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce imports committee, said yesterday.

“Importers in Christchurch are losing thousands of dollars worth of goods each year because of pillaging,” said Mr Whitty.

“The problem is especially serious now because of the shortage of raw materials. People might be waiting up to 10 months for goods to arrive, and then have to wait another two years after they have been pillaged. “Some importers have found that once a carton of goods is breached, there is a dip into it at every port. If the ship calls at only two or three ports, the pillage is not as great,” he said. Mr Whitty said that importers had told him of pillaging costing more • than $3OOO from shipments to Lyttelton in the last few weeks. These included a big proportion of imported worsteds, a $5OO porcelain figure from Denmark, about $3OO worth of Spanish figurines, and a $3OO shipment of Siberian crystal from which only one piece was salvaged. Another was of 216 clocks, always subject to pillaging. Between 300 and 400 had been stolen from a shipment a few years ago, said Mr Whitty.

“It is difficult to say exactly where the pillaging occurs because it probably starts overseas at the moment the goods leave the factory.

“One cannot pin-point it at Lyttelton. All one can say is that there is a lot of pillaging, some of which occurs at Lyttelton,” he said.

The police heard about only a fraction of the cases, he said. Shipping companies and insurance firms were prepared to meet most of the cost.

“We did appeal to members of the Chamber of Commerce once to report pillaging cases to the police, but they still deal with only a small percentage of the actual cases. “Of the six most recent cases, only one was reported to the police. Most importters who have lost goods, including myself, have never made a complaint. “It would take a lot of a businessman’s time to report each case.”

Mr Whitty said that the extent of pillaging at Lyttelton might decrease if gates were placed around the wharves and there was stricter surveillance.

"The Lyttelton wharves, unlike Auckland and Wellington, are open to everyone. When the lunch whistle blows and the watersiders move away, anyone can help themselves.

“Too many people have access to goods manifests, or lists of imported goods. Anyone who is not bona fide can take a look,” he said. Senior-Sergeant C. G. Evans, of the Lyttelton police, said the police often heard of pillaging only when it reached sizeable proportions. “In quite a number of

cases one is able to tell from the position of the stowage that pillages have occurred,” he said. “Occasionally there is a file reported in which one could say it happened locally. “It is seldom pillaging is reported immediately after it has been discovered. It often is a matter of days, by which time the ship concerned has turned about.”

Senior-Sergeant Evans said that the Lyttelton police were definitely not timid about handling pillaging inquiries. “We are not reluctant to make inquiries, but it is an area in which we get little co-operation from people in a position to assist. “It is one of the types of theft for which one nas the greatest of difficulty in obtaining convictions. One has virtually to catch the offenders red-handed, and this is not easy.”

(Talks held, Page 2)