GANG THREATENS A CITY

Taranaki Daily News, 1 September 1930, Page 7

GANG THREATENS A CITY

HEAVY RANSOM DEMANDED PESTILENCE AS ALTERNATIVE SCHEMES OF BOLIOE FAIL BLACKMAILERS AT LARGE By Telegraph—Press Assn.--Copyright. Rec. 5.5 p.m. Berlin, Aug. 30. Threats of death and financial ruin to. a city of 1-25,00 people, followed by a chase by detectives in a railway train, were episodes in a drama enacted at ■Madgeburg. A gang of blackmailers offered the city the alternative of paying a big ransom or having its gardens ami fields ravaged by an insect pest and all the reservoirs poisoned. The blackmailers added that they- proposed to let loose a swarm of Colorado beetles which would destroy the Madgeburg potato crop, which is the most important- i-rt the district. The gang’s ultimatum ' .arrived on Wednesday and included intricate instructions how the money' was to be handed over. Detectives followed-out the instructions in detail, hoping to track the blackmailers. They threw a packet.supposedly containing the money from' a moving train at the spot indicated by the exhibition of a huge letter “A” as instructed by the blackmailers. The detectives then stopped the train and rushed back to the spot, but a man on a 'bicycle in the meantime seized the packet and escaped. The gang still eludes capture.