DARING BANK ROBBERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20217, 30 March 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

DARING BANK ROBBERY.

' (TUNNEL INTO STRONGROOM. THIEVES STEAL GREAT SUM. PATIENT BURROWING WORK. RECENT SENSATION IN BERLIN. It now appears that the raid on a blanch of the famous German Bank, Disconto Gesellshaft, 'briefly recorded recently, was one of the most daring and ingenious crimes of its kind on record. The value of the plunder is estimated a■. hundreds of thousands of pounds. Over 150 fafe deposit boxes were opened ar.d pillaged. The thieves, who, it is believed, must have been at work lor a fortnight, had made a tunnel 10ft. long, Sit. high, and 3ft. wide. A remarkable feature is thai, the police were not called ' in until three days after the robber,*. Berlin is still speechless with astonishment —not unmixed with admiration —over the unprecedented robbery in the Kleist Street Iranch of the Disconto Gesellschaft, said the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph at the time. The amount of plunder which fell into the hands of the thieves is still largely ' a matter of conjecture, but it must run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. 'The bank itself lost the comparative 'trifle of £2OOO in notes, and the real stifferers are the tenants of private safe-., in the vaults. They have already registered with the police claims against whoever may prove responsible for over £50.000 on account of cash alone, and that is merely the thin edge of the wedge- When the missing gems come to be reckoned up that total is expected rapidly to multiply. A Locksmith Baffled. It now appears that, although the police were called in only on the Wednesday, the robbery was actually consummated on Sunday. After the clerks had failed to open the door of the strong room a locksmith was summoned. When he proved unequal to the task the builders of the chamber were consulted. Not until ,they had admitted themselves to be baffled was siege laid to the vault with pickaxes and oxy-acetylene blowpipes, and 15 hours elapsed 'before an aperture was ,rnade large enough to admit a man. Then at last the police were sent for, and several of the tenants of the flats above the bank first learned from the papers of the strange war of mining and countermining which had so long been going on beneath their feet. It must, in the opinion of the authorities, have been going on for a fortnight, for it is not believed that in a shorter time the thieves could have removed the 20 to 25 cubic yards of earth and masonry from their tunnel. This, it seems, was ten feet long, three feet broad, and eight feet high. These ample dimensions, it is explained, were required to admit the passage of the cylinders of oxygen, with the nelp of which the strong room was bieichedFor two solid weeks, it is believed, a gang of three or four men must have dug and delved beneath the house, sometimes actually under th? pavement of the busiest street of the West End of Berlin, the sounds of their tools and apparatus being muffled to the ears of passers by the rumbling of motor-buses and the clanging of tram gongs. Underground Labyrinth. How they got to the point where their mining began is still a mystery, but not a very profound one. There is a " pension " above the bank, and its clients sometimes forget- to lock the door when they come in at nights, so that wat'.hful strangers could in that way slip into the courtyard. Thence there seems

to have been more than one entrance to the cellars v. hi eh honeycomb the foundations. The . narrow passages by v.hhh the thieves moved to and fro were made only to accommodate drains, water pipes, gas mains, and electric cables, and this labyrinth afforded excellent hiding places if any authorised person did chance to come down them. On the, other hand, the robbers :eern to have piied up the nibble excavated from their tunnel in some ordinary cellarage which might easily have been visitetf by tenants of the house. It is Kaid that from the outset the gang must have reckoned with 80 per cent, chances oi' failure. By following the mains the thieves reached an opening beneath the three stone steps which lead to the front entrance of the building. Here their work began with a breach in the very foundation wall of the house itself, and here, as elsewhere, it was characterised by a neatness and precision which fill the specialists with admiration. Expert Knowledge Shown. Indeed, it is said that they showed a knowledge of the expert civil engineer, the manual dexterity of the experienced bricklayer, and instantaneous infallibility in the appraisement of valuables as is usually found only in professional auctioneers. fiie tunnelling, which was secured by props and stays, ended with the wall of the actual treasure room, which is a foot and a half thick. When this had been overcome with the help of the blowpipes the thieves bad no difficulty with the private safes. 1 liese, in contrast to the Ktrori" room itself, which is said to he absolutely up-to-date, were rather oldfashioned in their construction. OI 173 separate boxes 152 were let. and these were all broken open. The contents were sorted on a large tabic in the «ciifre oi tli" chamber, slocks, shares, wills, and family papers being piled up as one heap of refuse and silver plate as another. Jt i s strongly suspected that among the safes forcibly opened was one to which the thieves themselves held the key. Only by hiring one of these receptacles, it is thought, could the gang have acquired the knowledge they evidently possessed of Ihe internal arrangements of the bank's vaults. Although the thieves left in considernble disorder the discarded residue of the contents of the safes, they very carefully jenicived all traces which might have given a clue to their identity. Curious Irony of Fate. J3v a curious irony of fate, the robbery was perpetrated on the very eve of the completion of arrangements which would have made it impossible. The bank vaults were being fii'ed wilh a system .of electric alarms which, it is claimed, provides 100 per cent, security against robbery. Indeed, one account says that the actual plant was already complete, and that ail that wa« Jacking was current to work it. Another, account of the robbery says to gain, access to th r - hank cellars the thieves, moved aside- the electric cables, and then they geiUly hacked a hole through llto foundation of the house, arid so reached ft point about six feet under tin: pavement. Then they excavated the passage.

Even* night, for a fortnight or so, they closed with bricks and mortar their hole thtough the foundations, sprinkling the outside -with dust so that nothing would be noticed should any person pass that way during the day. This was so well done that the entrance was ultimately discovered only by chance; a detective happened to kick against this hollow part of the wall. Through their tunnel the burglars came to the ventilation shaft, and tie removal of a few plates by means of oxygen apparatus was an easy matter. JDown this shaft tie men had dropped info the silver department. Their apparatus soon cut through the steel door connecting it with the room in which were the small compartments rented by the bank s customers. When the thieves went into tlie strong room thev wedged and jammed the locks arid bolts of the great steel door from the inside. Thus bank clerks who wished to enter the room on morning could not turn the 1 oek. .Skilled mechanics weie sent for, but could do nothing. The builders of the strong room were instructed to make an entrance from the .side. After 13 hours' hard work a hole large enough to permit a man to crawl through was made. Then the situation was revealed! But before the police were informed the burglars had a start of 60 hours. They left only three clues — three empty brandy bottles! A thousand pounds reward has been offered bv the J Ji.sen to Bank for information that wiil lead to the capture of the burglars, and another thousand .s added bv the Bankers' Association.