BREAKING UP A BAND OF THIEVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6213, 15 October 1881, Page 7

BREAKING UP A BAND OF THIEVES.

A band of very dangerous thieves_ has just been broken up in Paris by the patience and astuteness of a policeman. The gang consisted of eleven men and three women, the former being attired in the uniform of commissionaires or porters belonging to the Messageries, by which means they were enabled to stand about the streets in communication with each other without exciting suspicion. Their operations were carried on in the business streets, such as the Rue des Jcuueurs and the Rue de Sentier. Of late many complaints. have beeu made of the number of robberies from clerks and others engaged in carrying goods. The police agent in question, suspecting the plot, and noticing certain signs of recognition between the men and women, caused a cart with some bales of merchandise in it to be driven to a particular house ; and while the driver went in for orders he noticed that the pretended porters closed up and each of them abstracted a parcel, while the women kept watch. The latter were at once arrested, so that they could not give an alarm, and the thieves were followed to a wineshop and taken redhanded. In their lodgings were found large quantities of goods which had been thus abstracted.