SMUGGLERS CAPTURED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 9 November 1927, Page 5

SMUGGLERS CAPTURED.

A BALTIC INCIDENT.

DAMAGED VESSEL FOUNDERS.

Y CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT RIGA, Nov. 7.

At the height of a gale the* Lithuanian patrol ship President Snietona* sighted a vessel acting .suspiciously on the Baltic coast, and, on .approaching her, recognised the stranger as a former Gorman destroyer which failed to answer signals and. owing to her superior soced escaped. Later coastguards sighted and fired on the destroyer, apparently crippling her engines, tor she surrendered to the Smetona. as soon as the latter hove in sight. The Smetona put a prize crew aboard and the latter discovered 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 the prize to port, but the hawser parted and the destroyer foundered with the Lithuanians aboard. Hans Hofmeister, captain of the bootleggers, was the isole survivor, being washed ashore unconscious. Tin? coast was strewn with wreckage and casks of spiritsWhen Hofmeister recovered, lie said the destroyer was the Hafenbier, formerly of Danzig.