CROWDS SEE BIG ROBBERY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16497, 1 August 1924, Page 10

CROWDS SEE BIG ROBBERY.

HIGHWAYMEN’S HAUL IN DENSE

TRAFFIC.

£50,000 DIAMONDS AND WATCHES, NEW YORK, June 12. Scores of people, including a traffic policeman, were witnesses to-day of a dramatically staged robbery on the lower West sode of New York.

Twelve highwaymen, well led and formidably armed, succeeded in carrying away jewellery, diamonds and watches variously estimated at between £50,000 and £IOO,OOO in value. , . All New York is discussing their feat, which is paralleled in daring only by the robbery in the same district three years ago of securities worth £200,000 from a United 'States mail lorry. The chief of the highwaymen on that occasion was Gerald Chapmkn, who, though subsequently captured and sentenced, made, a sensational escape last year from the convict prison at Atlanta. The jewellery'stolen to-day was being transported from the General Post Office at the corner of Eighth-avenue and Thirty-third street- to the Government Valuers’ office in Hudson street, where it was to be assessed before being forwarded to diamond and watch dealers. The motor van carrying the packages was in charge of Daniel Keahon, vicepresident of a large carrier company which executes the business for the Government, and the driver was Edward Foy; Keahon remembered afterwards that a yellow taxicab followed the van closely all the way down town. A few' streets from the scene of the robbery the cab overtook the van. It- drew up to the kerb just as the deuce traffic came to a standstill owing to the preoccupation of a policeman who was serving a summons to a. driver who had violated tlie regulations.

Four men, heavily armed, leaped from the taxicab arid hauled Foy and Keahon from the van, beating them on the head with the butts of revolvers while they carried them to a motor car on the opposite aide of tlie street. In this car were eight armed men. As soon as the jewels were secured by two of the robbers and Keahon was thrown into the street the motor car started off at breakneck speed. It travelled unmolested for five miles up town. At, 145th street the highwaymen vanished after flinging out 'Foy v who was picked up by bystanders and taken to hospital. i Other messages from New York state that the jewellery had arrived frorn Europe in the liners Leviathan and Paris.