SONOMA GOLD ROBBERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19419, 30 August 1926, Page 9

SONOMA GOLD ROBBERY.

SEi MYSTERY OF 1921. ARREST OF A SUSPECT. ACCUSED .PLEADS AN AUBI. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright, (Received 5.5.p.nj f ) A. and N.Z. NEW YOEK. Aug. "27. A message from San Diego states that Placide Joseph Ducrest, aged 35, who was arrested on. the Mexican border on July 15 and charged : with smuggling aliens into the United States, was identified to-day by finger-prints as a man who has been wanted by the police since November 22, 1921. It is alleged that he is the man who stole £25,000 worth of gold from the Oceanic liner Sonoma while she was fin. route from Sydney to San Francisco. .The gold was insured.-.., Jt r-was loaded „at. Sydney and shipped by the. Commonwealth Bank of Australia t0... the • International Banking - Corporation- : at, San Francisco.

Ducrest was quartermaster on the Sonoma at the time of the robbery. Ho was arrested by the San Francisco police, but he escaped and the authorities have been searching for him since then. It is believed that the gold, which was in five boxes, was removed before the Sonoma reached Honolulu. The thieves filed off the locks on the specie tanks and replaced them with duplicate locks to,hide the theft.

The immigration inspector at San Diego announces that if Diicrest should be acquitted on the charge of sltliigglihg aliens he will be handed over to "the San Francisco authorities to be questioned in connection with the Sonoma robbery. Ducrest denies the theft. He says he has been employed as a bartender at Tijuana since 1919. Identification experts state that his handwriting and photographs of his. finger-prints tally exactly with those of the Sonoma robber.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced in November, 1921, the theft of five boxes of gold "it had shipped by the Sonoma, which sailed from Sydney -to; San Francisco on November 2. In .addition to the five boxes stolen 10 other boxes were shipped. Each box contained £SOOO. The goldwas shipped only' 20 minutes before the steamer sailedand locked in the strongroom in the presence of officials of the bank and of the ship.