In one of the most unusual public incidents in South African history, three prime suspects, one of them caught red-handed-accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of jewellery belonging to the country’s richest family - all walked away scot free.
In a most unusual book, which was widely received at the Cape Town Book Fair last June, Max du Preez, himself a most unsual Journalist, tells the epic story...

At seven o’clock on the evening of 5 December 1955, Bridget Oppenheimer, wife of the diamond Magnate Harry Oppenheimer, Africa’s richest industrialist at the time, opened the safe in a cupboard in her bedroom and took out four pieces of jewellery to wear at dinner that night. Instead of using the key she always kept in her handbag, she used a duplicate that was kept in an old satin box in the cupboard.
She was back home by ten - husband Harry head was on safari in the Congo, so she was on her own. She didn’t notice anything odd, apart from a missing pillowcase. She made a mental note to speak to her personal maid, Hedwig Holman, about this, but thought no more about it. She placed the jewellery she had worn that night on the bedside table and went to sleep.
At about eight o’clock the next morning she opened the cupboard to put the four pieces of jewellery back in the safe. She was immediately alarmed when she couldn’t find the satin box in which the spare key was kept. She took the other key from her handbag and opened the safe.
She went cold. The safe was empty, apart from a few inexpensive trinkets.
Gone was the unique pure white, emerald-cur, twenty-three carat diamond ring. Gone were the equally unique giant pink diamond ring with emerald and sapphire shoulders, the rare blue marquis diamond ring, the twelve carat blue-white diamond ring ser in gob and platinum. Gone, too, were the diamond and emerald necklaces, the black pearl rings, the diamond and ruby brooches and bracelet. Also missing was the unusual set of two Buddhas set in platinum and diamonds.
At the time, the collection was insured for just over £2500: I though it would fetch many millions of dollars today. It was so exceptional that the Oppenheimers displayed most of the pieces in Kimberley during the British royal family’s visit in 1947.
Mrs Oppenheimer telephoned the Hospital Hill police station and spoke to Captain Alwyn Burger, who, on hearing the Oppenheimer, immediately contacted Colonel Ulf Boberg, commander of the Witwatersrand detective division. The two officers with a small army of crack investigators, fingerprint experts, police photographers, were at Little Brenthurst before nine that morning.
Mrs Oppenheimer later admitted that her collection was too large for her to remember all the pieces, so she contacted her husband’s office to obtain the list of jewellery that had been given to the insurers. This revealed that there were sixty-seven pieces in all. In addition to the police, the Brenthurst estate was also soon swarming with Anglo American employees.
Mrs Oppenheimer sent an urgent cable to Harry in the Congo. The dramatic news didn’t seem to upset him too much. The next day he sent a telegram back: “Don’t worry. Love. Harry.”
Mrs Oppenheimer gave her first interview after the theft to Dennis Craig, a reporter at The Star. “I’m now left with as much jewellery as the average city typist,” She told him. He later remarked, “This was a slight exaggeration, for any office girl we have been able to ‘do’ the Continent on the proceeds of the necklace she was wearing.”
She said her most cherished piece - also, at about £700, among the least valuable - was a brooch in the shape of a South African Tank Corps badge and studded with diamonds, which her husband had given her when he was a tank commander in the war.
Like officers Burger and Boberg, Bridget Oppenheimer was completely baffled. There was no sign of forced entry to the house and no fingerprints anywhere; nothing else was missing; and the four watchmen who had been patrolling the grounds the previous evening had noticed nothing and no one unusual. The dogs didn’t bark, the butler, Robert Ritchie, didn’t see or hear anything and neither did Mrs Oppenheimer’s personal maid. In fact, the Oppenheimers’ ten-year-old daughter, Mary had been sleeping in the room next to her mother’s and never woke up. Ritchie and Holman were grilled for hours by the detectives.
On 9 December, the insurers offered a reward of £15 000 for information leading to the recovery of the Oppenheimer jewels. They announced that a senior London investigator, Dudley Strevens, would probe the theft on their behalf.
The day before Strevens arrived in Johannesburg, an Australian by the name of William Linsay Pearson walked from the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg’s city centre, where he was staying, to the insurance company offices in Simmonds Street. He asked to see Clive Murray, the assessor who had announced the reward. Murray wouldn’t see him, but was intrigued by the message Pearson left, and went to see him at the hotel later that day.
Pearson told Murray he could get the Oppenheimer jewels back, but the insurers had to play a role in this process. Murray told him that Strevens would be leading the investigation and Pearson then insisted that he would speak only to Strevens.
The morning after his arrival from London, Dudley Strevens had a tense meeting with Colonel Ulf Boberg, who came close to threatening Strevens with arrest should he withhold any information from the police. Strevens was in fact already doing so, because he didn’t tell Boberg that he was on his way to interview Pearson.
Pearson told Strevens straight off the bat that he had been a grifter all his adult life. He said he arrived in South Africa on 7 November and shortly afterwards struck up a conversation with a man in a bar. The man eventually told him that he knew of a “big job” that was going to “come off” in Johannesburg soon, and Pearson immediately assumed this would be a diamond or gold heist.
Not long after this, said Pearson, during a trip to Amsterdam London, he read in a London newspaper that the Oppenheimer jewels had been stolen. He assumed that was the “big job” his friend had talked about.
On returning to Johannesburg, Pearson contacted the man he had met in the bar, who confirmed that his suspicions were correct. And that, said Pearson, was how he made contact with the thieves he was now offering to sell out to the insurance company.
Pearson said he could get the Oppenheimer jewellery back, but definitely not for a mere £15000. He said he knew those who had stolen the jewellery were expecting £75000 for it, but he could bring that down to £50,000.
Strevens responded that he could never pay more than ten cent of the value of the stolen goods as a reward, but added that they had increased their evaluation and could now offer him a reward of £20,000. Well, said Pearson, opening the door of his hotel room for Strevens to leave, then there was no deal to be made.
But when Strevens arrived back at his Simmonds Street office, he was told that Pearson had telephoned, saying he needed to speak with Strevens again. At their second meeting, Pearson put a new proposal to Strevens: a reward of £20,000 and a retainer of £5 000 a year for four years as a “non-working” member of the insurance company’s staff. Strevens agreed to put this proposal to his superiors in London.

Boberg became suspicious about Strevens’s movements and possible contacts, and the next day, when he again threatened the insurance investigator with criminal charges, Strevens volunteered the information about Pearson. Boberg ordered Strevens to fetch Pearson at that instant.
The Australian conman repeated both his story and the proposed purchase of the jewellery for £5oooo to the colonel. Boberg cut him short, implying that Pearson was planning to steal the £50,000 and get away with the jewels as well, He had already established that Pearson could not have been the thief, since he was in Amsterdam at the time, but the police officer was in no mood to negotiate, and gave Pearson an ultimatum. The police would produce £50,000 in notes that would look real but would be worthless, having already been withdrawn from circulation. Pearson was to set a trap for the thieves, and when they took the money the police would pounce.
Pearson had little choice, and so he set the plan in motion. Boberg prepared the suitcases with the banknotes and Pearson told his contact that he was ready to buy the jewellery. He said he was acting on behalf of an Italian-American Mafia boss, Lucky Luciano, whose representative would provide the money, but would have to view the jewellery before the cash was handed over.
The trap was set for the evening of 14 December. Sergeant Johannes Swart ....................get the book (Of Tricksters, Tyrants and Turncoats): more unusual stories from South Africa