Michael Adams

That was so that they could keep an eye on things.

They were both family men.

Both of their families with their adult or teenage children were in Perth, so they were remitting their money.

I think Pittman was about 53 and John Walsh was about 64, so they were long in the tooth.

They were veterans.

Yeah, yeah.

They knew what they were about.

And, like, as far as I understand, it was kind of a bit good cop, bad cop.

John Walsh would take a fairly generous view of blokes.

If he got an idea that you were stealing gold, he'd have a word, lay off, or we're going to bust you.

Pittman was a bit more of a hardliner, so he maybe had a few enemies.

And everybody sort of knew everybody.

There were lots of blokes who'd been previously convicted, so they'd keep an eye on these guys.

But the gold thieves would go to great lengths.

This was a big business.

Oh, yeah.

I got the...

WA police files for this case, two and a half thousand pages from the 1920s, includes like all the telegrams, the notes, the cables, the tips that had been reported, interview transcripts.

And it included like an annual report from a couple of years earlier.

And they're talking about cases where they busted guys, you know, 300 ounces of gold, which, you know, these days is, you know,