CRIMINAL’S LOST FORTUNE.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16644, 14 November 1925, Page 9

CRIMINAL’S LOST FORTUNE.

LEADER OF THIEVES GANG. BRILLIANT TURF SUCCESSES JN AUSTRALIA. A mail who made and lost great iortunes on the turf and became the master of a daring criminal gang has been unmasked by Scotland Yard. He directed several big hauls oi jewellery from London hotels recently, and he was sentenced at the Old •Bailey recently to three years’ penal servitude He is now a man of 71. . Three of his ..accomplices, who wore also sentenced, included a young woman. Other members of tie gang are at ’large. From his father this clever criminal inherited £15,000 and increased his wealth with brilliant turf successes in Australia. When his fortune turned he went to Scotland and studied crime under a. Glasgow trainer of thieves. James Duncan Roberts, a grey-hair-ed, bearded man of 71, who was once a wealthy racehorse owner who achieved dazzling successes on the Australian turf, was unmasked at the London Sessions recently as an ex-convict and forger, who became a King of Receivers, and the master mind ol a daring criminal gang. How this former turfy ■'■magnate squandered a fortune, reduced himself to penury, then met a notorious trainer of criminals, who introduced him to the underworld and started him on a career of crime, was told by DetectiveInspector Leach, who knows more about international crooks and swellmobsmen than any other Scotland Yard officer.

Roberts is the son of an Australian sheep farmer, who died worth £60,000 to £70,000. He inherited about £15,000 as liis share of the fortune went in for racing ,and became one of the most successful owners in Australia. RECKLESS GAMBLING.

He owned several famous horses which won many important races and earned him huge sums, but there came a, turn, in his fortunes, and he found himself ruined by reckless gambling. James Duncan Roberts, the racehorse owner and spendthrift, disappeared, and there rose up in his place Duncan Brown, master criminal, and the brains behind many a daring criminal conspiracy. It was in the name of Duncan Brown writes a Daily Chronicle representative, that Roberts was convicted at tho London Sessions as a receiver of stolen property, and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. ORGANISING GENIUS.

His capture, by means of which the police have been able to break up the gangs of which he was the organising genius, was brought about by exhaustive inquiries into a series of jewel thefts from London hotels.

A deep-laid conspiracy was revealed by the police inquiries, but it was only by following endless clues, and keeping observation for long periods on the suspects that the detectives obtained the information which enabled them to swoop down and obtain the evidence that disclosed Roberts as the leader of the gang.

Three of hi's accomplices,.Alfred Ingram, an old thief, Edward Francis Peters, and his young wife, Edith Peters, were arrested at the same time. Other minor members of the gang are still at large. Big hauls of jewellery were made by the gang from London hotels by working according to a plan of campaign directed by Roberts.

Mrs Peters was assigned the role of getting the “inside information. ’’ Roberts provided her with forged references to enable .he to secure situations in hotels. When she had “marked down”' guests with valuable jewellery and learned where the jewels were kept other members of the gang would arrive at the hotel and put up as visitors, seize the booty as soon n's a favourable opportunity presented itself, and then they would all decani)). FORGER’S CHEMICALS.

When Inspector Leach and the other Scotland Yard men who had been investigating the robberies, made their raids upon different addresses in London used by the gang .property stolen from the Telford Court Hotel, Streatham, was traced, and it was in connection with the theft that the four were convicted.

Ingram, who has a bad criminal record, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. Peters was given 15 months, and his wife nine. A lot of incriminating evidence was found by the police at Roberts’s apartment. There was a stolen cheque, the crossing on which had been removed by chemicals, and all the stock-in-trade of a forger and an expert confidence-man Roberts originally studied crime in Glasgow under the tuition of a trainer of thieves whom he met when he came to Scotland after lie had lost his fortune in Australia.

He was sentenced in 1903 at Glasgow to five years’ penal servitude for stealing £IOO in bank notes. After he came out of prison he continued his criminal career, and became one of the most expert forgers in the country; but Scotland Yard got on his track when he came to London, and he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 10 years’ penal servitude for forging Bank of England notes.