LIQUOR SMUGGLERS
DESPERATE GANG CAUGHT VESSEL FOUNDERS IN GALE (Australian and N.Z. Cable Associa'ion.i RIGA, Nov. 8. At the height of a gale, the Lithuanian patrol ship President JSmetona, sigiited a vessel acting suspiciously on the Baltic coast, and on approaching her recognised tlie stranger as a former German destroyer, winch failed to answer signals and owing to her superior speed escaped. Later, the coastguard sigiited tlie vessel and fired on her, apparently crippling her engines, lor she surrendered to the President Smetona as soon as the latter hove in sight. The President Smetona put a prize crew aboard, and the latter discovered they had captured a desperate gang of smugglers who for months past had succeeded in landing big cargoes of spirits on the Lithuanian and Latvian coasts.
The President Smetona commenced towing her prize to port, but the hawser parted and the destroyer foundered with the Lithuanians' aboard.
llans Hofmeister, captain of the bootleggers, was (lie sole survivor, being washed ashore unconscious.
The coast is strewn with wreckage and casks of spirits. Hofmeister, who has recovered, says the destroyer was. the Ha fen bier, (formerly the Danzig.
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Bibliographic details
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16492, 9 November 1927, Page 7
Word Count
189LIQUOR SMUGGLERS Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16492, 9 November 1927, Page 7
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