Mcallen Daily Monitor

CITIES TO JOIN IN GAS FIGHT
Police Stumped
By
Gangsters In
Greatest
Holdup

OFFICERS FIND
BLIND
ALLEYS
IN THEIR HUNT
Cannot Locate Boat
On Which Bandits
Got Away With Loot
Of $427,000.

BROOKLYN, N. Y., Aug.
22.- (AP) -Police today
found no tangible clues to
the whereabouts of the ban-
dits who, working with pre-
cision, executed the $427,
000 holdup of an armored
truck.
Every path authorities
took in their gigantic search
brought them into blind al-
leys.
The hunt for the desperadoes
was almost entirely marine. Swift
police launches, carrying heavily-
armed crews of detectives roared
through the bay on secret missions.
A flurry of excitement caused
by the finding near Floyd Ben-
nett airport of a cabin cruiser
bearing the name "Popeye" quickly
subsided. Witnesses said that one
of the boats in which two of the
bandits leaped at Bay 35th Street
shortly after the holdup yesterday
was named "Popeye."

Find Wrong Cruiser
Charles Zaun, of Brooklyn, own-
er of the "Popeye" found today
told police that his boat, a 30-foot
cabin cruiser, painted white with
brown trimmings, was at Harm's
Yacht basin during the holdup.
Police
investigated
another
"Popeye" at the foot of Kimball
Street, Brooklyn. It was a 12-foot
rowboat.
Loomis Wolfe, employee at the
lumberyard near the spot where
one of the bandit cars was aban-
doned and through which the two
robbers dashed on their way to the
(Continued On Page Two)
Officers Find
(Continued From Page One)

pier where two boats awaited them, told police that about 10 o'clock yesterday morning the automobile left there had appeared, and that its occupants got out and walked to the pier.

They apparently looked over the ground carefully, he said. Adding that at that time there were no boats docked at the pier.
New Arch Criminal.

BROOKLYN, N. Y., Aug. 22-(AP) -A new arch criminal, craftier than a Capone and deadlier than a Dillinger, hid today from the law, with the largest loot of cash ever taken in an American holdup jingling in his jeans.

Timing his $427,000 robbery of an armored truck yesterday as a sardonic coincidence to Police Commissioner O'Ryan's sixtieth birthday anniversary, the new strategist of crime executed the theft so smoothly and fled so swiftly that his trail ran everywhere today into dead ends.

The police failing in their quickly-set trap yesterday, turned their full strength, today into the hunt.

Throughout the night the air bristled with radio commands to cruising squad cars and speedy police patrols. No arrests have been made, but scores of men, women and children-witnesses to all or part of the holdup-have been questioned.

Bootlegger Blamed.

Some credence was given to a theory that the crime was conceived in the brain of some former bootlegger made desperately poor by repeal. This theory was given substance by the finding last night of empty money bags-possibly the very bags in which the $427,000 was being transported-in the rear of Finnerty's bar and grill at 2115 Emmons avenue, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

The bags were found beneath cigarette vending machines in Finnerty's place. They were stamped "Federal Reserve" and "Brooklyn Manhattan Transit."

Phil Claro, a bartender at Finnerty's said ten men whom he never had seen before entered the barroom at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon--three hours and a half after the robbery-and had a round of beer. The number of men involved in the holdup has been variously fixed at between 10 and 14.

The money taken from the armored truck consisted of sums collected at several Brooklyn branches of the Bank of Manhattan, as well as from private firms. It was destined for the Federal Reserve bank in Manhattan.

Not An Inside Job.

The police have apparently no inclination toward any theory that the holdup may have been an 'inside job'. They call attention to the fact that not only were the two guards and the truck driver men of vouched-for integrity, but also that no advance information as to a truck's route is ever made known.

The hijacker technique marked the robbery, a detective said. In prohibition days, he recalled, gangs numbering a dozen or more men would swarm over the side of a rum running vessel, take over the cargo at the point of pistols and machine guns and escape in speed boats to pre-arranged destinations where fast motorcars and trucks awaited.

Fast cars and speedboats were essentials of yesterday's crime. The thieves drove away in cars of such power as to enable them to outdistance pursuit and went directly to a dock where speed boats waited to race them out of the police circle that had been quickly swung around downtown Brooklyn.

This detective, who declined to be quoted by name, said there is little doubt but that the robbery had been planned for more than two months.

New Crime Strategist.

The employment of an ice cart as a vehicle for conveying machine guns to the scene of an intended robbery was a touch strengthening belief that a new crime strategist had leaped forward to snatch the mantle of master rogue that fell when federal guns dropped John Dillinger in Chicago. When the moment for action came, a burlap covering was yanked from the cart, showing a machine gun ready for immediate action.

The distribution of gang members about the vicinity of the Rubel Ice corporation's plant at Bay 19th street and Cropsey avenue was further evidence of careful plotting.