SHOPLIFTERS CAUGHT

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 August 1925, Page 3

SHOPLIFTERS CAUGHT

MOTHER AND FAMILY. SYDNEY, August 14. The most astounding discovery made during the currency of the recent midwinter sales'conducted by the big city stores has been the result of the arrest; of a mother, her two daughters and a child of nine years. Police claim it to have teen a clean-up of a whole family of shoplifters, and they were all caught in the act. Neither of the two girls is yet 20 years of age, but they had an excellent plan of campaign. The procedure was to enter a store at which a sale was being conducted, and while the mother stood back the daughters would take small pieces of valuable merchandise, pass them swiftly to the mother, who would secrete them, and then the family would move off to fresh fields and pastures new. Even the child of nine had been trained to the same methods, and was. the police claim, quite an adept at picking up valuable items and “passing them to mother.” Their actions in one store eventually drew the attention of a house detective, and he held them all up. They denied fiercely that they had taken anything, but when members of the Criminal In vestigation Branch and a policeman were called in and the suspects searched goods from five other firms, as well as some from the place where they were arrected, were found in their possession. And when the detectives visited their home they found more than £5O worth of similarly suspect material. The mother and daughters were charged.