CLEVER CARFAKING TRADE DISCOVERED

Stratford Evening Post, Volume I, Issue 78, 11 March 1931, Page 8

CLEVER CARFAKING TRADE DISCOVERED

SWIFT POLICE RAID ON SYDNEY DEPOT DETECTIVES HOLD VEHICLES AND MAKE ARRESTS SYDNEY, March 5. The extensive operations of the cleverest gang of car thieves Sydney has known ended last night, police claim, when, after dying visits to various suburbs, detectives arrested four men on many charges of stealing. The arrests "came as a sequel to weeks of investigation by the "motor squad," and is the biggest capture since the squad was formed. Already eight cars, valued at many hundreds of pounds, have been recovered, and detectives believe that when their inquiries are completed very few of the cars that have been stolen in Sydney during the last three or four months will not be accounted for.

Detective-Sergeant Bowie, Detectives Gplding, Nye, Schultz, Buchanan, Dudeney, and Summers, and Constable Arnold got a clue to the methods of the gang Some time ago, when in the back yard of a house at PettTfhain they found a stolen car, so disguised that its owner could not recognise it. Every possible 'mark of identification had been obliterated or altered, and even the engine number had been changed. Soon afterwards the detectives found another stolen car. So perfectly was it disguised that the agents l'or the car could not tell the model. The police were told that the gang, which had been operating in every part of the city and suburbs, were expert motor engineers, who were able to make (he necessary alterations to a car witliTtiTlwo days. On several occasions cars were taken to the Traffic Office and registered the same week as they were stolen. Usually the' cars were sold through dealers, but in some cases finance agents were duped by means of faked hills of sale.