NO CLUE FOUND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23233, 30 December 1938, Page 10

NO CLUE FOUND

RANGITATA ROBBERY EXHAI/STIVE INQUIRIES 500 PERSONS INTERVIEWED Since the New Zealand Shipping Company's liner Rangitata sailed for London from Auckland on December 16, about 500 persons, representing nearly every passenger who left London on October 13 for Now Zealand, have been interviewed to see whether any further light could be shed on the theft of £I6OO from the captain's safe while the vessel was berthed at Central Wharf at Auckland. Exhaustive inquiries have been made by the police in all parts of the Dominion and in' many Australian cities and towns, 'but so far no reliable clue has.been found. The file at the Auckland detective office is steadily mounting as the result of investigations made by DetectiveSergeant Nalder and Detectives Moore and Brady, and in other places the New Zealand police are steadily sifting information which has come to them from various sources. In addition to inquiries by the Dominion and Australian police, ara those being pursued at Panama, Los Angeles and London, in co-operation with the New Zealand Shipping Company and the Matson Line, since it is considered in some quarters not unlikely that whoever was responsible for opening the captain's safe with a duplicate key, promptly mailed the negotiable portion of the stolen money, about £I3OO in English banknotes, by either or both the Aorangi and Mariposa, which left Auckland on December 12 for Sydney and San Francisco respectively. Although the task set the police is baffling because of its many side-issues, the detectives still are hopeful that they may eventually be successful. ' Even yet the reward ofl'erfed by rhe New Zealand Shipping Company for information may bring results, and there is the chance that a search squad from Scotland Yard, that will closely* scrutinise the cargo as it, is unloaded in London, will find some of the money at least.