FIND NO TRACE OF SMITHVILLE BANK ROBBERS

[Welland Tribune March 13 1947]

Car licence trick is worked by bandits who scoop up $2,500
Smithville, Ont. March 13- A bank robbery that almost misfired and which was partially fortified by the timely appearance of a Caistor centre farmer netted five armed bandits approximately $2,500 yesterday afternoon where they held up the Royal Bank here.

The five men, four of them wearing white handkerchiefs on their faces, the fifth wearing dark glasses, entered the bank a few moments before closing time. According to a witness they announced it was a holdup and “just swarmed over the counter. Front and back.”

Earl Wait, the farmer, parked his automobile across the street from the bank and, unaware of the holdup, attempted to enter the building. The bandit keeping watch saw him approach and as he(the farmer) was about to open the door, the man ordered him inside.

Wait realized what was taking place and dashed down the steps from the bank. He scraped his hand as he stumbled but kept running and shouting that the bank was being held up. The bandit on guard took deliberate aim and fired a shot in the direction of the fleeting ma. He missed.

At the sound of the shot, one of the man who was scooping up the money in the teller’s cage said: “let’s get the hell out of here.”

The men. a witness said, filed out of the bank almost leisurely. An accomplice, the sixth of the bandits, was at the wheel of a large automobile in front of the bank and the men scrambled into the vehicle and they drove away. As they did a  Smithville woman took the licence number of the car.

Coincidently, three bank inspectors were visiting the building and they with three bank employes were forced to lie on the floor while the bandits gathered their loot. Jean Voll, ledger keeper, was the only woman employe in the bank and declared she was “pretty nervous” at the time.

The bandit car followed Main street and disappeared on No. 20 highway as police threw up a road blockade south of Stoney Creek.

Ingenious License Dodge
Kitchener, March 13-Ontario car thieves are obtaining proper license plates for their booty in an ingenious way which police are trying to circumvent, it was learned here today.

“In fact the man who thought out the scheme is a minor genius,” said a police officer who described the process.

Bandits who held up the Royal Bank at Smithville, Ont. Yesterday made their getaway with $2,500. were said today to have used a stolen car, with regularly-issued plates.

The method, to which police are now wise, entails first of all stealing a new car. Then  a false bill of sale is made out, taken to the provincial license issuer who registers the car and turns over the plates.

Three cases of such false registration in February have come to light and two of the cars have been recovered. The third is currently in use by the Smithville quintet, Witnesses took down the number of their car and investigation showed the license to have been issued at New Hamburg to a “Frank Malone. R.R. No. 1, Elmira” was issued plates in Kitchener last Feb 11 but the car was recovered in Ottawa two weeks later.

A car recovered recently in Toronto had been similarly registered at Guelph by a “Mr Taylor of R.R. No. 1 Breslau.”

If the thieves stay clear of the law after registering their car the trick is difficult to detect under present regulations.