AMAZING DISCOVERY.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 July 1925, Page 4

AMAZING DISCOVERY.

♦ THIEVES’ G.H.Q. PACKED WITH LOOT. NEW YORK, April 8. The curiosity of a lone constable led to the amazing discovery that a very large and fully equipped warehouse near the waterfront of the city was nothing loss than a den of thieves whose operations have been mystifying the police for many months. So well organised was the place wilh ofliees and all appurtenances necessary to the conduct of a large busi ness that it. was evident the band were directed by what the criminal investigation authorities call a “master mind." The constable, casually interested in a lorry loaded with woollen goods wbi-h drove up to the place at seven o'cit ek in the morning as he patrolled his beat, strolled after it as the warehouse doors opened and, the lorry rolled In. TV> big doors were hastily shut in his face. Suspicious Slam. The constable had suspected nothing wrong, and probably intended only to get into conversation with two men on the vehicle. But the slamming of the door put him on the alert. He telephoned his station, and in a very few minutes a squad of reserves arrived, and smashed their way into the place where there Avas no response to their summons,to admit them. Loot, that a hurried inventory estimated anywhere from £150,000 tc £200,000, was found. It consisted of vast stores of silks, velvets,, woollens, tobacco and other merchandise of many kinds. There were twenty-two motor lorries, three motor-cars and two light delivery waggons, all recently stole.v some of them still piled with goods with which they were loaded when the thieves made off with them. One had a full load of cigars and cigarettes. In the store-rooms, neatly and systematically arranged, were the proceeds of numerous burglaries. A great quantity of business correspondence, papers and well-kept books were in the offices. Not “Dry-* In (he cellar were 100 barrels of alcohol and two stills of the latest model. Two men, who pretended that they were employed as night watchmen and that they had been asleep, were ar- i rested. There was plain evidence, however, that the offices had been ■vacated in a hurry, and further search there resulted in the discovering of a trap door that led by a secret staircase to an exit on the street in the rear. Through this the “master mind" and his lieutenants had made their escape. __ * i