BURGLARS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 January 1933, Page 6

BURGLARS

OPERATING openly

TERRIFIC EXPLOSION

SYDNEY, December 30.

A few nights ago a. desperate and audacious attempt way made to rob the Cleved'on Street branch of the Commonwealth Savings Bank. The burglars had chosen their opportunity well and had entered the building through the empty rooms of the bank manager, who- had retired a, few weeks before. But, either through inexperience or over-anxiety, they put too much gelignite in. the holes that they had bored in. the strong-room door. There was a terrific explosion, the mai.sive door was torn completely off its hinges and hurled into the room, and the thieves, finding that there was still a- safe inside to force, fled in dismay. But these burglars were neither so skilled nor so successful as the men. who broke, into the Allawah Hotel at Tvogarah, a few miles from Sydney, during that same week. The manager of the hotel a.nd his wife went away from the- place about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Their little boy had broken Ill's; arm, he was a patient at the district hospital, and they went to visit him there. Another son and the barman luad gone off for the day on a launch picnic, .so that the building was empty. The thieves, who must have: watched the movements of the people in the house very carefully, soon found the .safe and attempted to blow it open on the spot. But the gelignite exploded outward, shattering the furniture around. The burglars were not to be beaten, They . deliberately earriel the safe downstairs .and out to a waiting motor-car,.drove round to the back of Madrefield racecourse, near. Brighton beach, and there, in broad daylight, in a quiet by-street, .they successfully blew the safe door to atom's.

A CONSIDERABLE “HAUL.” This time the noise attracted attention, but when curious neighbours arrived on the scene, they found only the dismantled safe and saw the burglars’ car vanishing in the distance. The thieves had got away with £503 in notes and £430 worth of jewellery, included -a diamond necklace which had been the property of a Russian ooumtess before the Bolshevik revolution and in some mysteriewy fashion had found its wav to Svdnev.

The police were soon on the trail of the buiglars, and. two men whom they arrested were brought, to trial. One of them declined to say who drove the car on the day of the robbery,- for the sufficient reason that certain men who' were recognised p.y the police as notorious criminals, had .threatened that they would “get him” if he gave any information to the authorities. The other defendant asserted that lie had participated in the burglary to the extent of watching the house, simply because he had been told that if he did not lend a hand he would “get a bullet through him,” so that- the investigation into this burglary, ha’s not been quite iso successful as might be desired.

POLICE DISGUISES. . But it is.'at last clear that some nf the more experienced criminals who make a profession of burglary here are dangerous and, desperate men and the police have often to report to guile to effect a capture.- In this Allawah Hotel case, one of the suspects was made ,the victim' - of an. ingenious stratagem. In company with .two others,., lie was wan, tiering /through''Moore Park, quite unaware that two. ragged derelicts close at hand were officers in disguise and that two of the loving .couples io -the vicinity, who seemed to-be entirely absorbed in each other were policemen and—l am compelled to add—pc’ up women. At last one of the policewomen gave the expected ‘ signal, but the man took alarm and fled, with In If a dozen “coupey*” on his trial. Ho was outdistancing them all when suddenly ono.of the “dead-heats.” whose disguise lie had failed to pierce—he was ..in. reality an extremely athletic policeman with a fine football record—flung off his apathy and brought the fugitive to the ground with a magnificent “flying tackle” from which there was no escape. But there are burglars with whom it w ould not be safe to risk.- such delicate strategy.