The Great New Zealand Robbery

by Scott Bainbridge

  On 24 March, Christchurch CIB received an anonymous call from a woman stating that Nash had boarded the Japanese MV Tokuwa Maru in Lyttelton that morning and was now in international waters bound for Japan. She stated he paid his way on board and had been living on the ship with the captain’s knowledge. Enquiries were hastily made and it was learned that, while the ship was indeed due to visit Lyttelton, it was actually inbound and en route to Tauranga. Chief Inspector Graham informed his North Island colleagues and arranged a welcoming committee. As the vessel steamed in to port, a constable commandeered a dinghy and anchored on the seaward side of the vessel in case sympathetic wharfies attempted to smuggle Nash on board. Every inch of the ship was searched thoroughly by ten police and two customs officers but nothing was found. The captain was bewildered and said he had never heard of Nash and did not tolerate stowaways. His explanation was considered plausible, as ring-bolters usually boarded at the last minute at the very last port the ship visited before heading overseas. The MV Tokuwa Maru was still due to berth at Napier, Wellington, Lyttelton, Dunedin, Timaru and New Plymouth before returning to Auckland and heading to Japan. Nevertheless, the ship was searched at each port it visited.

  There were similar tip-offs and allegations for practically every international vessel visiting New Zealand waters; every call was followed up and each vessel searched. It wasn’t possible for minor ports to maintain the kind of presence and oversight that Auckland’s Wharf Police did, and there was little chance of widespread cooperation amongst wharfies, for many of whom the 1951 confrontation was still raw. If an opportunity to stick one to the authorities came their way, they weren’t going to pass it up.

  Beyond that kind of casual antagonism, there was also a more organised element. ‘There was a large syndicate operating, a number of likely guys in all ports,’ one retired watersider who would later rise to a position of prominence within the union and local government recalled.

  There were union reps who would be associated with the Auckland gangsters of the time. Word would filter down to wherever and we would determine where the best port to get out was from. Naturally, it would be dependent on the drink as a safe, risk-free passage could involve any number of guys. In the late fifties, early sixties, we were smuggling any number of high-profile Aussie and Kiwi crooks, or everyday Joes who just wanted to escape their lives and start afresh. You had to have a sympathetic skipper. Most were OK about it—they had seen it all before—but there was always one or two who you were wary of and we didn’t try it with them. Once out at sea, we would give them the knock and they would come out and be accepted as crew or as a passenger. Some skippers insisted it wasn’t a free ride so they would be put to work in the galley, but few complained. At the other end there’d be a contact guy there to hand over the goods. It was rare we would see the package again, but there were one or two who would make the trip across back and forth regularly.

  The number of sightings of Nash in the Christchurch and Lyttelton areas dwindled by late March. The various local newspapers were diligent in finding some new avenue of enquiry or suspicion in order to bolster sales, but after a few weeks even the most suggestible reader soon grew sceptical. Gideon Tait sent a memorandum to police stations around the country confident that ‘if Trevor Nash was indeed hiding out on my turf he would have been found and flogged by now’.

  With the South Island looking unlikely to be Nash’s hiding place, enquiries shifted back up north. On 21 April 1961, Auckland CIB received an anonymous tip alleging Nash was hiding in Hawke’s Bay and offering a substantial amount of money for passage to New York on an outgoing vessel.

  Upon hearing this, Detective Constable Bill Brien drafted a hasty memo to Napier Police, and Constable Beaton was assigned the task of pursuing the matter until Brien could get there to take over in person.

  That day, MV City of Swansea left Auckland for Napier, where it was to load wool before departing for New York. Brien arrived with two hours to spare before it departed, so he and a contingent of local detectives wasted no time in boarding the vessel and ripping it apart. There was no trace of Nash or any other stowaway. Brien growled in frustration before storming off, leaving the local constabulary to cobble together an apology and tidy up the mess.

  Brien stuck it out. Another international vessel, MV Port Quebec, bound for Dunkirk, was moored due to bad weather, as was MV Benarty, also bound for Dunkirk via Panama with a cargo of wool. On 26 April both ships were searched by Brien and Sergeant Pender but to no avail.

  Next morning, 27 April, MV Rippingham Grange steamed into port. Around 2 pm, Brien and a squad of detectives stormed aboard and showed photographs of Trevor Nash to the ship’s officers. Chief Officer Gilmour peered closely and stated he believed the picture in profile of Nash was similar to that of a man he had seen aboard his vessel two days previously. Gilmour had noticed the man walking along the port alleyway after they had left Nelson. He passed within 10 feet (3 metres) of Gilmour—close enough for the chief to be certain that he didn’t know him and that he was not a crew member or watersider. He had quite well-defined, high cheekbones and was wearing a dark-coloured cap and a grey-brown pea coat. Captain Walker allowed a search to take place and the photograph of the fugitive was passed around his crew of 76 assembled on deck.

  Upon viewing the photo, a Pakistani seaman named Abdul Rahman became excited. In a statement he made to police, Rahman claimed that when the vessel was berthed in Auckland two weeks before, on 10 April 1961, he was passing by the top of the gangway at about 7 pm when he noticed two men on the wharf walking towards him. The first man—slightly built and with high cheekbones—was dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers without a coat or tie. From a distance, Rahman thought this man could have passed for being Chinese, but close-up inspection showed him to be European. From the photograph, Rahman was adamant this man was definitely Trevor Nash. The man he was with was older, around 5 feet 4 inches, with grey hair and a pale face. He was of stocky build and wore a dark suit. Rahman spoke to them briefly, and during the entire exchange the second man didn’t say anything. Rahman asked the man he now believed to have been Nash what he wanted. In reply, he pulled out a thick roll of banknotes, saying he and his friend needed to get out of the country fast and wanted his help to stowaway to America. He peeled a good few banknotes off the roll and assured Rahman that he was happy to pay ‘top pound’. Rahman had never been placed in this kind of predicament before, and went with his gut feeling. He shook his head and walked away.

  According to his story, the pair stood there for a few minutes, looking at him, before returning to the wharf and standing there, talking quietly, as if they were discussing their next option. Then, as far as Rahman could tell, they left the area.

  Captain Walker supported Rahman’s account, saying he had been employed by the company for many years and was ‘one of few Indians [sic] he found reliable’.

  The ship was boarded and thoroughly searched, causing it to be delayed beyond the scheduled departure time. Other crew were interviewed, but only Ship Steward Makra Horisha stated he had seen a man resembling Nash dressed in casual clothes similar to those described by Rahman in the native quarters at the stern of the ship, smoking a cigarette, only two days previously. He seemed relaxed. Horisha and the man did not speak, and Horisha did not see him again. He assumed he was a ring-bolter.

  The search attracted a great deal of attention, prompting an article in the Hawke’s Bay Telegraph the following day reporting that Trevor Nash was hiding out in Napier. This resulted in a flurry of calls to the under-resourced local police. One from a local and well-respected traffic officer was given some credence. Bill Somerville filled his car at Townsend Motors on Dickens Street on 26 April and had noticed a man loitering outside the premises. Somerville thought the man suspicious and kept an eye on him. A few minutes later, a 1957 Model Singer Gazelle pulled up. The man hopped in and the car sped off. Somerville thought at the time the man might have been Nash, but had assumed from the article
s he had read that Nash was older. When he saw a better-quality photo in the paper, he realised the man he had seen was definitely Nash. Somerville had taken the precaution of noting down the number plate and, when traced, it was found that the Singer was registered to a Wellington man named Douglas McFarlane, a known criminal-underworld figure. McFarlane was duly interviewed, but provided an alibi. He was able to satisfy police that he had not left the Hutt that week, and if the police had any curiosity about the whereabouts of the Singer Gazelle, it was not recorded in the files.

  Even some relatively far-fetched leads were followed up. When the cruise liner MV Iberia sailed out for the East, a ‘Mrs A. Nash’ was listed on the passenger manifest. It was briefly believed that this could be Nash in disguise—until it was found the lady in question was a local farmer’s wife and no relation to the fugitive.

  It was still considered plausible that Nash was hiding out in Hawke’s Bay, because a number of criminal groups operating ring-bolting rackets were known to exist there. When the Hastings Bank of New Zealand reported that two £5 notes and one £10 note with serial numbers connected to the Waterfront heist had been banked, it seemed that this belief had been vindicated. But when police talked to the customers who had banked them neither had criminal records, nor could they recall how they came to be in possession of the stolen notes. One thought he might have acquired his note as change in a business transaction with the local dairy company.

  The discovery of these banknotes gave the police cause for some optimism that Nash was in Hawke’s Bay, perhaps biding his time before he could secure safe passage out of the country. By this time, he had been on the run for over two months.

  — — —

  Around the same time, during April 1961, banks around Auckland reported finding a total of twelve £10 banknotes and six £5 notes within the sequences stolen from the Waterfront Industry Commission. The customers who could be traced as having banked them were interviewed, but none could shed any light on where the notes had originated. All said they must have received them as change from shops or as legitimate drawings from various banks. Besides these and those in Hawke’s Bay, similar sequential notes had turned up in Tokoroa and Masterton, but they were singular and not considered worthy of follow-up.

  From May a number of banks around Northland began reporting finding notes within the stolen series. On 10 May, a £10 note with the serial number 4/F 883702 was amongst several hundred notes in the banking from the Farmers Trading Company in Whangarei. The accountant was interviewed but, because the shop had fifteen tills he couldn’t determine which had received it.

  The Farmers £10 note was a turning point in the investigation with regards to the loot. Although the store had reported the find immediately, it took three days for the local sergeant to respond. Bill Brien complained to Detective Sergeant Irving that following up suspicious banknotes had been ineffectual and the government analyst’s experiments had not conclusively proven a direct connection between any of them and the Waterfront payroll robbery. Irving issued a directive to all banks and businesses that police ought to be notified only if a series of notes in the same sequence were discovered: police would no longer act if single notes were found. It was hoped Nash would be tempted to offload or launder the rest of his stash in the way he had done it in Newmarket.

  The day before this directive was issued, the same Whangarei Farmers store contacted police again to report finding a £5 note with a serial number matching the sequence of £5 notes thought to have been stolen in the Waterfront heist. Police decided not to investigate. The process of elimination by which the serial sequences of the stolen £10 notes had been determined had been relatively precise, based on the information the bank could provide and the recollections of the payroll staff. They didn’t know where the sequence began and ended, but the theory had been largely corroborated by the serial numbers of the banknotes Nash had tendered in Newmarket. But they were even less confident that they knew the sequences of the £5 notes. The government-seconded accountants estimated approximately £11,000 in £5 notes was taken, and half of this amount was in brand-new notes. Based on the recollections of payroll clerks Heyder and Cranswick, as well as those notes found scattered around the floor, the experts believed the notes ranged from 4/Y 499001 to 605000 and 4/Y 707001 to 711000, although they were unable to confirm precisely where the sequences started or ended and it was likely they had been split and broken down into bundles—or split further into composite bundles—on the day before the robbery.

  The next day another £5 note, 4/Y 509098, was banked at Whangarei Bank of New South Wales and traced to wages paid to a Fletchers Construction employee, who reported receiving it from the bank. The following day, National Bank reported finding £5 note 4/Y 520904 amongst a bundle banked by Junction Grocery from the day’s takings.

  According to the police’s new policy, there would have needed to be at least four or five £5 notes in close sequential order to be of any interest, and it was considered that suspect notes would be of no use if they were well handled. These particular £5 notes were undoubtedly within the suspected sequential series, but how long they had actually been in circulation was unknown. Consequently, detectives weren’t overly enthusiastic about examining these latest £5 notes. Auckland CIB kicked it around. Nash had no known associates or links to Northland, but there was a possibility that someone involved in the Waterfront payroll robbery was busy laundering £5 notes up north. Nash had been found with £10 banknotes; perhaps this co-offender had been given his share in £5 notes? Since £5 notes were of lesser value, they would be easier to spend without attracting suspicion, which meant that these notes may have been in circulation for some time—perhaps even years.

  Nevertheless, the Modus Operandi group pored over files to see which crooks had links to Northland. The list they came up with had been narrowed down to a dozen. When, on 12 July 1961, Australia and New Zealand Bank in Dargaville telephoned to say yet another suspicious £5 note had been banked by an engineering company, Constable Hughes was instructed to pack his bags and head to Whangarei to commence enquiries.

  He was about to leave when word came through that Nash had been found.

  CHAPTER 14

  CAPTURE

  By the end of June 1961, with no more sightings and all possible leads exhausted, the squad was about to be disbanded. Irving was sent to Rotorua, a temporary promotion as quasi-superintendent; Bill Brien was off to Police College to further his training in preparation for a transfer to a senior position in the uniform branch. This left Constable John Hughes as sole caretaker of the Waterfront payroll robbery and Nash escape file, but his stellar record had placed him on the fast track to detective. That potentially left the file without a head. Although Les Schultz wasn’t actively involved—his hands were full with leading the Consorting Squad—he maintained a close interest. He couldn’t bear the thought that Nash and his conspirators had got away with both the crime and the lion’s share of the proceeds. He regarded the robbery as tantamount to a personal affront and frequently argued with Walton and Brady that he ought to be placed in charge. He was always rebuffed.

  Crooks brought in for other matters were routinely quizzed about Nash and some snitched that he was living the high life in Australia. Constable Bretherton received a tip-off that Nash had stowed aboard the Wanganella a few days after his escape and been across the ditch all this time. Bretherton’s fizz had Nash drinking at a club called Rex in Sydney’s Kings Cross with Robert ‘Jacky’ Steele and a number of other gangsters only a week or so earlier.

  Constable Hughes pressed Bretherton to allow him to meet his informant, but when he managed to do so he found the man hopped up on morphine. There was little to suggest it was anything other than loose talk. Nevertheless, and despite the lack of anything solid, senior detectives riffed on the Steele angle, as it linked Nash to Gus Parsons. They reluctantly decided it was interesting, but in the absence of more information it was just another dead end.

 
Hughes returned to the office and found a message in his pigeonhole: ‘Call Superintendent Haywood.’ Hughes drove straight to Mount Eden Prison. Haywood glommed a letter addressed to him and written on prison-issue paper. It seemed it had been written by an inmate and smuggled out in order to be posted back to him.

  Sir, seeing that the Australian Police are looking for Nash it may be a wise move if they did have a look at a certain address: Mr A. L. Russell, 8 Princes Street, Mortdale, Sydney.

  These men had a fight here some time ago, remember? But a certain letter was to be passed to some visitors today, but it was snatched in time by a certain man, and right under your officers’ eyes in the wing; one part of the letter said Nash is still away and likely to be for quite some time yet. Look after him over their [sic], it may mean nothing, it may mean a lot…

  The letter continued for three more pages of griping about prison conditions. Hughes and Chief Officer Ward recognised the handwriting as that of David Keenan, and his cell was promptly searched. Keenan denied being the letter’s author but goosed on another prisoner who had a stash of letters ready for smuggling. One letter was intercepted which was addressed to an ex-prisoner, Alfred Russell, now resident of Sydney, and without a doubt the man referred to in the earlier letter to Haywood. This letter also mentioned Nash being on the run. Keenan initially copped to nothing, but later admitted that he had tried to smuggle the letter mentioning Nash out to Russell. He was adamant he had no idea where Nash was beyond what he heard on the prison grapevine.