16 Mar 2009

Cash stolen from tourist bus

6:01 pm on 16 March 2009

A group of Chinese tourists has had tens of thousands of dollars of cash and property stolen from a bus in Hamilton.

The police say the group returned from the Hamilton Gardens on Monday morning to find their bus had been broken into and luggage, property and foreign currency stolen.

The police are asking businesses and banks to be on the lookout for anyone trying to change large denominations of foreign currency. The money is in Australian and US dollars, as well as significant amounts of the Chinese currency, the renminbi, which has a picture of Mao Zedong on one side of the notes.

The police say it is important that crimes against foreign tourists are resolved quickly, so the country is not portrayed negatively abroad.