"POLICE" HOAX

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 December 1925, Page 2

"POLICE" HOAX

BOGUS WARRANTS AND ORDERS.

Were the redoubtable “Captain ol Koepenick” alive he would learn to-day that he has successors worthy of being bracketed as equal with him, and that his misdirected ingenuity—which maue the whole world laugh—is not extinct in .the Fatherland. To-day Germany, says the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, is laughing at a most amazing Koepenickiad, one act of which—the third and culminating act of the drama, indeed —was audaciously played out in the very head-quarters of the police here. i One afternoon, two clerks, employed by an important Berlin firm, the Wneiess Industry Company, were sent to the bank for the purpose of obtaining 20,000 marks for the payment 01 wages. These two young men—two are always sent on such an errand, tor safety’s sake—obtained the money and were on the- way back to their office when they were stopped in a busy street by two men. / These men declared that they weie detectives and had instructions to arrest the clerks. They produced thenpapers to show that they were detec fives, and also orders for arrest of the two young fellows. On the latter documents the clerks’ names and addresses were correctly given, and at the foot the signature and stamp of the chief of police stood in both cases, ihe matter seemed “perfectly in order. The “detectives” then hailed a passing tavi-cab, hustled the two prisoners” into it, and told the taxi-man to drive to—the police presidency ! While on the way there the “detectives” produced another paper, likewise signed and stamped, which empowered them to confiscate the money being carried by the clerks. At the gateway into the courtyard 01 the police presidency the policeman on guard saluted and the taxi proceeded. In the courtyard one of the “detectives” got out of the taxi, leaving the clerks in the charge of his colleague“l shall go and see if the chief of police is disengaged,” he said. He,entered the building, and five minutes later he returned and declared that the proceedings could begin at once. The four men thereupon entered the, police presidency and went to an empty room. There the clerks were told that the first thing they had to -do, in accordance with the document already shown them, was to deliver up the 20,000 marks. There was nothing for it but to comply. They were then told to wait in tlie room for a few minutes ; and the “detectives” went apparently into the next room.

A few minutes passed. So did an hour. When the clerks had been waiting about two hours a police official entered and asked them what they were waiting for. They explained, as briefly as possible, and again all seemed “perfectly in, order.” The police official went away and another wait followed.

Then the clerks began to get suspicious ; and when a second police official happened to look into the room they explained the matter more fully, and asked that their firm should be communicated with. This set the slow wheels of police action in motion. Real detectives came on the scene and questioned the clerks. For hours various documents were carefully filled in; one department after another read through them ; all night several of Berlin’s smartest real detectives wrestled with the matter. With dawn it could only be admitted that the two clerks had been victims of an astounding clever Koepenickiad.

No trace of the “detectives” has been discovered. They must have calmly walked out of the police presidency with their booty. It is safe to say that the saddest man in Germany today is the police president of Berlin.