BALTIC SMUGGLER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 9 November 1927, Page 6

BALTIC SMUGGLER

FOUNDERS AFTER CAPTURE

ONLY ONE -SURVIVOR

PRIZE CREW DROWNED

(By Electric Tclcirraph—Copyright.) (Australian & N.SS. Cable Association)

RIGA, 7111 Nov

At the height of a gale the Lithuanian patrol ship President Sineto-na sighted u vessel acting suspiciously on the Baltic coast, and on approaching her recognised the stranger a? a former German destroyer, which failed to answer signals, and owing to her superior speed escaped. Later coastguards sighted and fired on the destroyer, apparently crippling her enginos, for she surrendered to the President -Smetona as soon as the latter hove in sight. The President .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 cyf spirits on the Lithuanian and Latvian coasts. The President Smetona commenced towing the prize to port, but the hawser parted apd the destroyer foundered, with the Lithuanians aboard. Hans Hofmeis.ter, the captain of the bootlegger, was the sole survivor, and was washed ashore unconscious. The coast is strewn with wreckage and casks of spirits. Hofmeisler, who has recovered, says the destroyer was the Hafenbier, formerly of Danzig.