CRIME IN MELBOURNE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 19, 22 July 1925, Page 3

CRIME IN MELBOURNE

"GANG" REVELATIONS

IIYSTERIOUS MR. "X.'»

(PROM OCR OWK COHMSPONMNT.)

SYDNEY, 17th July.

Tho depredations of criminals in Melbourne have reached a, stage where the police are frankly powerless and the public fearfully bewildered regarding the tactical strength of law-breakers. Week after week the toll of crime increases, and mostly goes undetected. To bring before the public the task which confronts tha police and to help the latter by a little constructive criticism, one of the newspapers has been devoting a column or more each day to the story of Melbourne's crime organisation. These trustworthy investigations contain no rftore amazing revelation than that dealing with the receivers, who are considered the master-minds in the underworld.

From these, 'it appears thai, there ars criminals in Melbourne who - do not know who they rob, or for whom they rob. They take from the. nameless agent of the nameless "Mr. X," who is the leading receiver of the city, and whose operations are behind the city's worst gang of factory and warehouse breakers. There is only one such gang, reallyj in Melbourne, and when it needs men it obtains their services just as a largo industrial concern engages day labourers. Detectives declare that the receivers -who operato on the grand scalo in Melbourne sell the stock of the man whom they make their victim actually before they engage the men to steal it.; The name of the leading general receiver is well known to the police, and has actually been mentioned in Parliament, though they have never managed to convict him owing to the astuteness with which he works. It is only on rare occasions that he personally appears in any transaction with the underworld. His method is to approach business houses, either directly or indirectly, and offer for sale certain lines in softgoods or hardware, which ha knows he can employ men to steal from factory or warehouse. Having placed a certain line of goods, he employs a "go-between" of the criminal classes to arrange with the "gang"—Melbourne's worst criminal organisation —to obtain them for him, indicating where they may bo obtained and the method which it would be best to adopt. The gang itself is a limited criminal organisation, some of the members oi which are well known to the public, their names having appeared in some of the most notorious cases which the police have brought to light. Two members ol the organisation arc now serving long sentences. The- leader has never yet been convicted of a criminal offpiicn, though the police state that ho has been concerned' in robberies the proceeds of which total many thousands of pounds. When more men are required to engagn in criminal ventures at the instance of the ultimate receiver, the gang obtains these men, who are sometimes paid wages, sometimes a whole, price for the goods, sometimes a commission for the work they undertake. The ■ motor-xar appears to play a major rolo in the grand scale factory afld warehouse robbery. More than one-man now serving a term in gaol ia the owner of a valu° able motor-car, which has been used in such dopredatioas. In other cases cars and taxi-cabs are hired for the purpose. 1 It is a long and laborious task that the police have in,front of fheni to break up this organisation. Tho suffering Melbourne business community and public can only watch and wonder which building will be the gang's next objective, and read about it in tha no-4 morning's newspaper. "