GOLD ROBBERIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1425, 22 June 1899, Page 50

GOLD ROBBERIES.

IB E ALAMEDA CASE

SIMILAR INSTANCES OF THEFT

AVith reference to the recently-report-ed robbery of £3OOO from flit* strongroom of the San Francisco liner Alameda. it. may be of interest to recall that when the steamer left Sydney cm Alay Kith she carried away specie to the value of £l-30.000. of which the London Bank of Australia sent £50.000, tlie Union Bank of Australia £50.000 and the Bank of Australasia £50.000. The missing box of sovereigns formed part of the London Bank of Australia's consignment.

An Australian contemporary points out that this: makes another of a series of similar robberies which have occurred within recent years and the clean manner in which tlie thieves in nearly all the eases have got away with their booty suggests considerable cleverness in the modus operandi. The iast previous case occurred on board the Taiyuan, on her passage from Sydney to Hongkong. £SOOO being stolen. The officers of the Taiyuan received a rude shock while the vessel was approaching Hongkong, on finding the door of tlie strong-room ajar, when it should have been firmly closed, and after a hurried search of the contents their worst wears were realised. The Taiyuan affair occurred only a few months after the strong-room of the Oceana had been burglariously entered, while the vessel was berthed at Alelbourne. The theory was advanced by tlie police authorities of Scotland Yard that both the Taiyuan and the Oceana robberies were carried out systematically by a gang of London thieves. In the Taiyuan case duplicate keys were thought to have been used, the robbery being such a. clearcut one that this was the most feasible explanation. When news was received in Sydney of the Taiyuan robbery. Defective D. G. O’Donnell, of Alelbourne, happened to be there in connection with the Oceana mystery and had made a trip to England in the prosecution of his search after a clue. While in london he had a consultation with Inspector Froest of Scotland Yard, who expressed the opinion that these oft-recur-ring colonial gold robberies were the work of a gang of clever London thieves. Detective O'Donnell was instructed io make inquiries in Sydney re the Taiyuan incident as well, the information received in respect thereto strengthening tlie supposition that Smart London robbers had something to do with it. To ensure the success which attended the efforts of tlie gold stealers in both these cases, the police were satisfied that necessarily there must have been a number of men working eogether, their plans being laid months, and perhaps years, ahead. In the case of tlie £SOOO feloniously abstracted from, the R.AI.S. Oceana as she lay at Alelbourne, there was a complete mystery. When she shipped the Sydney consignment of coin the bullion room was locked, and Captain Stewart retained the keys, the key of the hatchways through which the bullion room should be gained being taken by the chief officer. Air Wood. One lot of Alelbourne gold was stowed away safely, but on the following day, when the bullion room was about to he-re-entered to lodge a ' second parcel,

the cha-mbc-r was found to he dimly lighted, and a rapid survey diseased that the top half of tlie starboard door was open. One of the- cases of Sydney gold stacked against the starboard Ode had been broached, and a box of gold taken. The Alameda robbery also recalls the case of the theft from the R.AI.S. Ibc-ria. at Alelbourne. tlie missing 'poem being subsequently found underneath a wharf at William-down. T 3 ten there was the sensational case of the Avova, in which specie was stolen from the steamer on the voyage from Sydney to Melbourne, suspicion causing several of those employed on tlie beat to be dismissed, t hougli it subsequently transpired, from the death-b., .’of the steward, that he was the culprit. After his death the purloined gold was found in tlie false bottom of his sea chest.