BOOTLEGGERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19993, 9 November 1927, Page 9

BOOTLEGGERS

A BALTIC GANG Rum-Runner Captured by Patrol Boat PRIZE LOST IN STORM CAPTAIN THE SOLE SURVIVOR (By Telegraph—Per Preu Asm.—Copyright.) Received Nov. 8, 7.30 p.m. (A. & N.Z.) RIGA, Nov. 8. At the height of a gale the Lithuanian patrol ship President Smetona sighted a vessel acting suspiciously on the Baltic coast, and on approaching her recognised the stranger as a former German destroyer, whicn failed to answer signals and owing to her superior speed escaped. Later coastguards sighted and fired on the destroyer, apparently crippling her engines, for she surrendered to the President Smetona as soon as the latter hove in sight. A prize crew was put 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 the prize to port, but the hawser parted and the destroyer foundered with the Lithuanians aboard. Hans Hofmeister, the captain of the bootleggers, was the sole survivor. He was washed ashore unconscious. The coast is strewn with wreckage and casks of spirits. Hofmeister, when he recovered, said the destroyer was the Hafenbier, formerly of Danzig.