WEST END RAID

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 99, 21 April 1933, Page 3

WEST END RAID

FAMOUS DIAMOND LIFTED BANDITS’ RAID IN CAR LONDON, March 4. One of the most beautiful diamonds in the world —once the centre stone in the crown of an Eastern Prince —was stolen in a daylight smash-and-grab raid in the West End. Valued at £7OOO, it was set in a ring which was lifted with a pair of pliers from the shop window of James Ogden and Sons, Ltd., in Duke Street, St. James’s. Four bandits carried out the raid. Three drove slowly along in a blue saloon car, and as they approached the shop a young man in a blue serge suit, who had been walking just ahead on the pavement, punched a six-inch hole in the glass with a brick wrapped in paper, and, with the pliers, hooked the ring through the bars of a steel grille. Women screamed and men shouted — one hurled a suitcase at the thief — but the man darted to the car, jumped on the running-board, and was whisked round the corner of King Street, and out of sight before the jewellers’ staff had time to reach the door. An errand hoy took the number of the ear, and was able to give the police a description of the man who broke the window. “The stone is of 10.60 carats and is one of the most beautiful diamonds in the world,” Mr J. Ogden, a, principal

of the firm, told a reporter. “It has a delicate blue-white lustre, is threequarters of an inch square, and very deep.” '