Shoplifting Raids

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7068, 30 January 1933, Page 3

Shoplifting Raids

HOW WOMEN ORGANISE GANGS IN AUSTRALIA SYDNEY Jan ]2 Police believe that an organised gang of women shopliftors is behind a number of. thefts from city shops in Sydney and Melbourne in recent months. Six women who are believed to be members of the gang have been convicted in Melbourne of larceny or unlawful possession charges. The headquarters of the gang is thought, to be in Tasmania, as the goods are disposed of there. The gang visits Melbourne in parties of three, and spends a few -weeks there, making systematic raids on big city and suburban stores. Somo time ago, detectives arrested three women on a Tasmanian steamer a few minutes before it sailed. In trunks which the women had sent aboard, more than £6O worth of goods was found.

Members of the gang are known to the police and shopwalkers in city stores, and some have lists of convictions against them, but they are clever thieves, and are seldom caught red-handed. Generally they have been arrested after they have taken the goods, and most of the convictions recorded against them have been on unlawful possession charges. When the women hunt in threes, as they usually do, they have adopted an ingenious and daring method of operation, in which each of the women has an allotted part. One woman diverts attention from the other two by behaving suspiciously in one part of the department, a second woman keeps watch and lets tho third woman know when to take tho goods without being seen by store attendants.

The police are hopeful that recent convictions will help to break up the gang, but point out that they are handicapped while the outlet for goods still remains in Tasmania.