FINES TOTAL £6l60.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 274, 2 September 1930, Page 3

FINES TOTAL £6160.

PROFESSIONAL SMUGGLER. BODY-BELTS FOR WATCHES. Fines amounting to £OI6O were imposed on Louis Marder (-14), merchant, of Cheetham Hill poad, Manchester, at AVestminster. He was charged with being concerned in a fraudulent attempt to evade the payment of Customs duties on 1841 watches at Victoria station on June 8, harbouring 499 watches at Manchester with 'intent to defraud the Customs, and attempting to bribe a Customs officer at Folkestone. Defendant was followed from Victoria to Euston by two Customs officers, and on his luggage being examined there it was found to contain "all the paraphernalia for smuggling." Two body belts of soft material were so constructed as to hold several hundred watches each, and a suit case had an ingeniously-arranged false bottom.

At defendant's house at Manchester 499 other watches were found, with a large number of empty cartons. Defendant pleaded guilty to the charge of smuggling and harbouring, but not guilty to. that of attempted bribery. Thomas Edward Phillips, a Customs officer at Folkestone, stated that defendant said to him: "If I had anyone here upon whom I could depend to help me get stuff through 1 could make it worth their while." Later he said: "If anyone will help-me it will be an easy matter to make £50." Subsequently he again saw witness and suggested meeting him in the evening when his duties were over. Defendant, giving evidence, said the conversation was provoked by the officer himself. He (defendant) never mentioned money nor did lie suggest travelling specially from London to see the officer. Mr Thatcher, a Customs inquiry officer, said that during the past two years the records showed that defendant had imported 540 gold watches, and had paid duty on them. As against that, records had been recently obtained from a number of his customers —some thirty-one—showing actual sales of watches during the same Seriod to the value of £6155 6s sd. ther customers had not been traced. Counsel said defendant was now a ruined man. He desired to express contrition for his offences. Mr Boyd said the case was the worst of the sort he had ever had before him. He had no doubt defendant was a professional smuggler, who had been doing that kind of thing for a long time with great profit. On the first charge there would be a fine of £5200, or six months' imprisonment; on the second £760, or eight weeks; and for the attempted bribery the fine would be £2OO, or one month.