CO129-579-11-1 Sino-Japanese War- seizure of unauthorized wireless transmitting apparatus 13-2-1939 - 7-5-1940 — Page 126

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REPORT ON TAIPO TRANSMITTER CASE

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For some time past we have had grave suspicions that illegal transmitting sets were being used in the Colony; owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining correct results from the

Direction Finding apparatus, we have had little success in

locating them. On information received from the Police Inspector

at Taipo, New Territories, our suspicions were at last centred on a group of houses at Kam Shan and a raid was carried out on the 27th March, 1939. A 100-Watt Short Wave transmitter was found

in operation and a quantity of filed messages and documents.

These were all seized and four persons arrested and charged

before District Officer, North, yesterday. On the suggestion

of the Attorney General, I communicated with District Officer, North, and had the case transferred to the Central Magistracy for

convenience. The four men appeared before the Magistrate this

morning and I obtained an adjournment of seven days. Unfortunately

the most important, the operator, had had his plea of guilty

recorded by District Officer, North, so he will have to return

to District Officer, North, to be dealt with. Numbers 3 and 4

defendants were discovered to be merely the cook and boy of the

The house, I accordingly withdrew the charge against them.

second defendant is the accountant of the National Resources

Commission (1) and was caught entering the premises with a batch of messages for transmission. It appears that this Commission originally had this set at Shum Chun and installed it at Taipo on the 21st February, 1939. They are using it for the

Chinese transmitting of messages between themselves and the Government and various parts of China Chung King, Foochow, Kun Ming, etc. We have also got their private code and with its help propose to break down all the filed messages. No attempt has been made by the commission to obtain any licence for such a station, which of course would have been refused, but this morning I received a letter from them, bearing yesterday's post-mark but dated the 25th March, 1939, asking for a dealers licence. This is clearly a belated attempt at covering

themselves.

The offence is in my opinion most serious not only