STOLEN NOTES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 11 January 1928, Page 5

STOLEN NOTES.

BIG COLOMBO MAIL ROBBERY. PRESENTED AT BANK BY INNOCENT WOMAN. SYDNEY, Dec. 23. Quite casually £IOO worth of Bank of England 10s notes was passed across the counter at the Commonwealth Bank yesterday for conversion into Australian money 7 . A calm young woman presented the pile of notes, but payment on them was refused. The reason was that the numbers on the notes corresponded with those in a parcel of £SOOO worth stolen during transfer from one ship to another at Colombo.

The young woman was innocent of association with the theft. She received the notes before she left Colombo for Sydney quite recently. it was the first instance in which traces of the year’s numerous mailboat robberies had been discovered in Sydney.

On a trip, not long ago, the Maloja carried £SOOO, all in English 10s notes, in a mail bag. The money was destined for China, but during transfer to another ship at Colombo the bag disappeared. I This robbery was the supreme coup of a. series of depredations by international mail boat thieves. The numbers of the notes were cabled to Australia. It was thought that an attempt might be made to cash them in one of the States of the Commonwealth. Mr. Gowan, oMef of the Sydney Postal Investigation staff, instructed Postal Detective Allanson to carry out- inquiries. He visited many banks in the city and furnished them with the numbers of the stolen notes.

A smart official at the Commonwealth Bang received the notes when they were tendered by the young woman yesterday, and compared the numbers on them with those of the missing English notes. He found that they were the same, and got into communication by telephone with 'Mr. Gowan. Postal Detective Allanson went to the bank and took the woman back to the G.P.0., where she was interrogated. With obvious innocence and candour she stated that -she arrived in ■Sydney by the Moldavia on November 2G. She was given the notes before she left Colombo. She bad no idea ■whatever, she said, that the- notes had been stolen. They were in separate packets, each of £lO.

CHECKMATING THE THIEVES. The notes are still in the possession of the postal authorities, awaiting investigations at Colombo. It was stated officially that the woman was not suspected in any way. It has been learned that several of the stolen notes were cashed in Colombo. There have been a number of mail boat robberies during the year, and curiously all have taken place on P. and O. vessels.

Sydney postal detectives believe that an organised hand of international thieves is operating on the mail boats. Until this theft of £SOOO the robbers previously bad to bci satisfied with small sums of money and goods of trifling commercial value. Either the thieves were given incorrect secret information or blundered. After long and patient investigation the nolice and postal authorities have no doubt that all mail steamer robberies occurred before' the,vessels reached Australia.

But there- is a fear that if the robberies are eon tinned the- thieves will be- rewarded with greater success in the future. Every precaution is being taken by authorities- in Australia and abroad to checkmate the- thieves. The Maloia, in which the 10,000 English 10s bank notes were taken to Colombo, left Sydney for 1,-ondon on December 17. The Moldavia, bv wbicli the young woman travelled from Colombo, is still in Sydney, moored at Woollo-o-tnnoloo Bay. Had the notes been part of an Australian issue, tliev would probably have been honoured by the bank when nrosenfod after reasonable investigation had been made lo- establish the honesty of the person by whom tliev were offered, legal osneets of the position being left- for solution later.

As the notes in this case- were those of the Bank of England, however, they are not- onyahle- in Australia, so that their redemption could not be “demanded” as a right.