SONOMA ROBBERY.

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 68, 17 September 1926, Page 7

SONOMA ROBBERY.

CHARGE AGAINST WANTED MAN

BELIEVED TO BE IDENTICAL WITH ALIEN SMUGGLER.

(United Pr^ss A_soci»tion.—Copyright) (Received 17th September, 8 a.m.)

SAN DIEGO, 15th September.

Placide Joseph Ducrest, who is wanted in San Francisco for the theft of £25,000 of Australian bullion from the steamer Sonoma in 1921, was found guilty in the Federal Court here on a charge of smuggling aliens into the United States, and sentenced to a year and a half in the penitentiary at San Diego. The police here have received letters and finger-prints from the San Francisco police, and say that they have positively identified Ducrest as the fugitive quarter-master of the Sonoma, who is .wanted for the bullion theft.

Placide Joseph Ducrest, aged 35 years, who was arrested on the Mexican border on 15th July, and charged with smuggling aliens into the United States, was identified at San Diego b,y finger-prints as the man sought since 22nd November, 1921, as the robber of the Oceanic liner Sonoma, when sovereigns to the value of £25,000 were stolen while the ship was en route from Sydney to San Francisco.

The gold was insured. It was loaded in Sydney and shipped by the Commonwealth Bank to the International Banking Corporation, San Francisco.

Ducrest was quartermaster on the Sonoma at the time of tho robbery. He was arrested then by the San Francisco police, but escaped, and had been sought ever since.

Although the theft was not discovered before the ship's arrival in San Francisco, the police there believe that the bullion, which was in five boxes, was removed before the Sonoma reached Honolulu. The thieves filed the locks of the specie tanks, replacing them with duplicate locks to cover the theft.

After lengthy searches and investigations all the gold, except £2, was discovered in different hiding-places. On 3rd December, 1921, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the quartermaster of the Sonoma, P. J. Ducrest. who was missing. The police then expected to "arrest him shortly."