LONG DISTANCE THIEF.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17058, 12 June 1926, Page 5

LONG DISTANCE THIEF.

SPECIALISES IN MOTOR CARS TRAVELLED OVERLAND. CAUGHT IN AUSTRALIA. SYDNEY, May 28. The career of the most amazing motor thief in Australia has reached a sudden ending by his arrest at ’ Boorabie, a lonely township in South Australia, on the Great Australian Bight. To hayo stolen a car.at Albany, West Australia, and driven it 400 miles through desert country, dodging habitations all the way as far as possible, is an amazing feat. But it is said to have followed another achievement in February, when the same man stole a ear in iClildura, Victoria, and drove it 1400 miles to Kalgoorlie, West Australia. Every police station from Albany to Adelaide had been advised of the theft of Mr. Herbert Horton’s car by a man who the police believed was making a dasli across the continent. _ Even the smallest police stations received a description of the car, and amongst these were those presided over by Constables at Penong and Fowley Bay, in South Australia. _ The progress of the stolen car was followed fitfully by stray reports which filtered through to the police, who had been unable, up to this week, to even sight the car, though they knew jt was being driven, across the States. They heard that it had brim seen 100 miles from Eucla. near Wilson Bluff, on the Bight. Then, according to reports, the motorist veered from the coast and dashed north 100 miles to Loongnna, on • the trans-Continental line. DEFINITE CLUE AT LAST. A definite cine—the first—was the report that someone had entered the huts at. the lonely 686 miles tank, taken about £9O iii cash, and some clothing. This indicated to the police that the motor thief had again changed Ins course, and was making across the border for the South Australian coast. \ conference was held between the constable from Fowley Bay and his mate from Penong. The former went cast and the latter went west. They met at- Bookbie, where they seized'the car, with two men in- it, when it drove in covered with dust. They recovered the money stolen from the huts at the Tank, also the clothes, and the two men were arrested and the car taken into the possession of the police. It is said that one of the. men is identical with a garage hand who disappeared from a Mi’.dura (Victoria) garage in February, with a car and £SO. The car was later sold in Kalgoorlie, West Australia, and the police claim that the man in their custody is the man wanted in connection with that case.