Off the 'Cuff

Movie stars! High society! Theft! San Quentin penitentiary! Europe! The USA! The Orient! Oh, and Vancouver… This case had it all. And the Vancouver Police Department helped to crack it.

The 1940 Vancouver City Police Department Annual Report outlined a case with all the drama and sexiness of a Hollywood movie pitch.

First, the set-up: “Frank Henry Johnson, an international jewel thief whose activities have extended from Shanghai, where he was born thirty-five years ago, to Europe, the U.S.A and Canada, arrived in Vancouver from the Orient.”

Then, the meaty body where all the action is and shows the VPD off to its best modern policing advantage: “Due to an efficient and well organized effort in exchanging information Vancouver officers were waiting to greet Johnston and he was arrested as soon as he stepped off the ship. He was held in Vancouver until extradition could be arranged to Palm Beach, Florida, where he was wanted on a jewel theft charge in that city. He was also strongly suspected of the theft of thirty thousand dollars in jewellery from a Vancouver citizen who was visiting Pasadena, California, which took place early in 1939.”

(Sorry, I just need to interject here: Who takes $30K in jewels with them on holidays, even now? And for our information and trivial delight, $30,000 in 1939 is worth over $443,000 in today’s dollars. I can’t help but be cheering on the jewel thief over the rich person who survived the Great Depression with both their jewels and taste for expensive destination holidays intact, but I digress…)

Then comes the third dark act when all seems to go wrong for our heroes in the VPD: “On March 11^th, 1940, Johnston was extradited to Palm Beach and taken there from Vancouver by two officers from that city. In Florida, the prosecution was unsuccessful in obtaining a conviction, and, as under the extradition regulations he could not be again tried on the Pasadena charge, he was returned to Vancouver by United States authorities and was deported to Shanghai early in 1941.”

And finally, redemption and glory for our noble VPD officers and that hint of glamour only movie stars can impart: “During 1940, excepting his extradition to Florida, Johnston was never out of the custody of the Vancouver police while all avenues of investigation were checked in his colourful past, which included the theft of jewels from the famous moving picture star Dolores Del Rio, in 1935, for which he had served his only known term of imprisonment in San Quentin penitentiary in 1935.”

I guess the film would have to end here with a brief text saying what went on to happened to Mr. Johnston. The VPD Annual Report does not say if he was cleared of charges in Shanghai or not. Perhaps Mr. Johnston did survive to steal another day or perhaps he was left to rot in a Shanghai jail. What is known is that Shanghai in 1941 was not one of the safer places to be on the world stage in World War Two.

Tags:   historical crime · research · robberyNo Comments