Booty Worth £120,000,

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2652, 6 November 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

Booty Worth £120,000,

INTERNATIONAL GANG OF THIEVES WHO MADE GREAT HAULS.

The leaders of a gang of international thieves Avho for two years have preyed upon A r isitors to the hotels at tlie principal Avatering places have just been arrested" in Paris.

The members of tlie band, all smartly-dressed men, ivould arrive at a Avatering-place in the morning, and engage sumptuously furnished apartments. But in tlie evening the rooms Avere found empty; the visitors had fled. Other visitors, xvhen they returned ito tlieir rooms, discovered that tlieir jeivels and> pocket-books ivere missing. The doors of the rooms ivere locked as usual, and . there ivere no signs of an entrance having been forced. Finally, it Avas established that the burglars bad 1 gained access to the rooms'(by the chimneys. The chief was a clerk in a Paris firm, and is now the secretary of _ a company Avliicli manufactures, chemical products. He it was who directed the operations of the burglars. He received reports daily from them, and made it his business to dispose of the spoil. •His principal lieutenant is a German, and tivo other members of the band, which is tiventy strong, hail from Lyons. . , Recently the German arrived in Paris, and was met at tlie station by his leader. Detectives watched the men, and arrested them in a house in the Boulevard Voltaire. In the leader’s bedroom ivere jeivels ivorth £4OOO. The thieves ultimately confessed that the gang by their thefts had secured booty ivorth £120,000. The leader himself had £32-,000 deposited ivith a German bank.