JEWEL ROBBERIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 286, 4 December 1933, Page 9

JEWEL ROBBERIES

EPIDEMIC IN LONDON £50,000 IN FEW WEEKS POLICE HUNT FOR RECEIVERS. Thieves ©scaped with at least £50,000 worth of jewels in London in the course of a few weeks recently. In their endeavours to check their opeiations the police are directing their main attention to the receivers, u select few of whom have reaped most of the recent harvest. If evidence can be secured for the arrest of the receivers. there will be a lull in the epidemic of “smash-and-grab” and oifebreaking raids. There are very few competent

“smash-and-grab” men working in London—two or three gangs at most — and the safe-breakers are confined to a few clever workmen who hail from Australia and have joined forces with a little band of Londoners. These gangs are compelled by the receivers to commit crime after crime in quick succession to make a living—which is not a very good one at the best of times. It is the very simplicity of the method adopted for working these raids that makes the task of the police so difficult. The necessity of a clean “get-away” is more important to fhe gang than the actual stealing, and there are many shop windows full of jewellery in Mayfair which owe their immunity only to their location being unfavourable for rapid escape. A shop apparently suitable for a raid may be kept under observation day and night for a week. The principal points studied are the times the police patrol the street, th© volume of traffic and the periods, if any when lulls in it occur. A raid having been decided or. day and time arc fixed. Probably two stolen cars ar© used, the first for the actual robbers, th© second to screen them in their escape and to hinder pursuit.

Three times out of six these raids arc successful. When the robbers are clear away from the scene the cars are abandoned and the men scatter to different parts of London where alibis have already been arranged for thorn. The leader makes a dash to another car which is awaiting him and drives off to the receiver with his booty. There is little bargaining; the thief knows the rate, of payment ho will got —10 per cent, of his haul. It is seldom :no e. often less. A diamond may be marked at. £2OOO in the shop from which it is stolen; the receiver estimates its worth at JMOOC for disposal purposes. He hands over

to the gang leader £lOO and says: “Thor© arc plenty more where that came from—go and get them, and there is another £lOO waiting for you. ’ The £lOO has to be divided among a gang of five, whieh means £2O each for probably a week’s work, with the risk of five years’ penal servitude. And when that money is spent—and it goes very quickly—the chance has to be taken all over again. Yet. badly as the receivers treat their fellow-criminals, they are sol lorn informed on. For as soon as a ,-eceiver is arrested and sent to prison tho remainder of th© receivers stop busings. That means that the thieves are deprived of tihoir market. Difficult as the task Is, the police are concentrating on arresting these receivers. They are liable to long periods of penal servitude.