£2000 IN FOUR DAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1926, Page 20

£2000 IN FOUR DAYS

RECORD ‘•'SHOF-WTIXO.” SYDNEY STORES SUFFER. Sydney, Dec. 16. Of the huge, crop of shoplifters produced by the crowds now thronging Sydney stores for the last-minute Christmas purchases, two apprehensions resulted in the recovery of worth of stolen property this week. It has proved to be the most extensive shop-lifting raid on record here, for the man and woman taken into custody to-day are claimed to have stolen .£'2ooo worth of goods in four days. They were arrested at the instigation of an employee of David Jones, Ltd., one of the largest emporiums in the city. She saw the woman hand a pair of silver-backed hair brushes to tiie man, who placed them in a suitease lie was carrying. D'hell searched by the police it was discovered that the man had several lengths of silk tucked under a dust coat he was wearing. Subsequently the room occupied by the couple at a leading city hotel was visited, and there the £2OOO worth of loot was discovered. It comprised whole rolls of expensive silk, heavy silk shawls, hosiery in dozens of pairs and similar articles.

The couple arrived from Melbourne only last Tuesday, and employees of the hotel say they were continually bringing in suitcases. Much of their booty was of the unwcildy type, but the man is said to have told the police that, in the surging crowds in the shops it was an easy matter to place them in large suiteases without attracting undue attention.

Some idea of the extent of the shoplighting in Sydney may be gained from the fact that in one day 16 separate arrests were made. The accused ranged from an old man nearly 70 years of age to a boy of six years. The boy had stolen a string of artificial pearls, his excuse being that he wanted to give it to the girl at the pictures so that he could get in for nothing.

Shopkeepers put down their annual losses by thieving of the description now being indulged in at many thousands of pounds. Fifty arrests are made each week during sale times and Christmas rushes.