LIQUOR SMUGGLERS

Evening Star, Issue 19709, 9 November 1927, Page 5

LIQUOR SMUGGLERS

FORMER GERMAN DESTROYER USED CAPTURED OH BALTIC COAST VESSEL SINKS IN GALE. Press Asscci ition—-By Telegraph—Copyright. RIGA, November 7. At the height of a gale the ■Lithuanian patrol ship, President Smelona, sighted a vessel acting suspiciously on the Baltic coast, and on approaching her recognised the stranger as a former German destroyer, which failed to answer signals, and, owing to her superior speed, she escaped. Later the coastguards sighted and fired on the destroyer, apparently crippling her engines, for she surrendered to the Smetona as soon as the latter hoye in sight. Tho Smetona put a prize crew aboard, and the latter discovered that they had captured a desperate gang of "smugglers, who for months past had succeeded in landing big cargoes of spirits on the Lithuanian and Latvian coasts. The Smetona commenced towing her prize to port, but the hawser parted, and the destroyer foundered with tho Lithuanians aboard. Hans Hofmeister, captain of the bootleggers, was the solo survivor, and was washed ashore unconscious. The coast was strewn with wreckage and casks of spirits. Hofmeister, who has recovered, says that tho destroyer was the Hafenhier, formerly of Danzig.