Michael Adams

Oh, thank you so much.

Talking about a case that I called Blue Murder on the Golden Mile because it's about the killing of cops on the Golden Mile in Western Australia, which was the area around Kalgoorlie, which was called the Golden Mile at the turn of the century because it was the richest place on earth.

The gold rush had started in the 1890s, and by about 1900, Kalgoorlie and Kilgardia and Boulder was producing a massive amount of gold, one-third of which was being stolen.

So it was the heisterama back in the day.

It was in the 1850s, but this was 50-odd years later.

Right.

Struck gold in Coolgardie first, I think in 1891 or 92, and then very shortly after Kalgoorlie.

And Kalgoorlie soon superseded it.

I went from being a spot in the desert to I think maybe 2,000 people within a couple of years and then another 5,000 or so by the end of the century.

So people flocked from all over to dig it up and they were sinking mines here, there and everywhere.

Then in 1906, it was reported this, I think it was an English journalist reported on the massive amount of systemic theft of gold.

What was happening was miners would take ore out in their clothes

And they'd either put it in dummy mines where it could then be found, or they'd take it out to process it in sort of bush smelting plants.

And then you could just take the gold to the gentleman thieves who were sort of the fences, the organizers.

They would then take it to the Royal Mint in Perth.

No questions asked, no paperwork required.

you just sold the gold.

Yeah.

So they found the rock that had the gold in it.

Right.