PARIS DRUG VICTIMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 144, 19 June 1926, Page 39

PARIS DRUG VICTIMS.

PLEASURE-SEEKERS OF j MOKTMABTB-. NUMEROUS ARRESTS. A strangn light upon more than one of a kind of artificial paradises sought by y feverish world of international pleasureseekers in Mjinmartre is thrown by two "paths of WL'iii' 1 - from overdoses of drugs j- the last r-w .lays. and by several arrests of Ulidt ■•-pliers of the drug. Germain Fo lilleul, who, after an evening nf dissipation and several bottles of ch.im„„—ie, was found dead from an overdose j cocaine, "'as an actress who had ap-, ncured on the stage and in several films, ' jmd went by 'he name of Wanda Sylvano. Gabrielle Elyvrard, her intimate friend, who -as found in a state of collapse in the tune room, was qualifier] as an avocate, and —as one of a jroup of Portias who add a certain picturesque note to the crowd in the Salle d>-s Pas Ferdus uf the Palais de justice, but o£ whom \ery few have any

serious pracric. Probably suicide was n' the intention of either ot' these women, but, in any case. there was no material motive for such despair, for both had plenty of money j and the actress was the owner of a luxurious motor oar as well as of the house | in which she died. Her death led to the > arrest ot a woman who sold drugs, the ! purchase of which was no doubt the motive for the constant visits from all sorts of people which she received in her flat at every hour of the day and night—visits which, however, mysteriously anu suddenly ceased when the police had removed her. !

The house in which this woman lived was by a strange coincidence separated only by a party-wall from that in which occurred on Palm Sunday the second of the two recent deaths from drag poisoning. The victim in the case, Gabrielle Durafour. had been a mannequin at a large dressmaker's, but more recently had devoted hefself en- j tircly to the garish night life of Mont-1 ; martre.- ■ Her death led to the arrest of the man | from whom she bought her drug, an' Italian, who passed as a quiet and retiring | literary gentleman, and his arrest led to that of a yonng Egyptian of good family, Trbo took drags himself besides selling f"M to others, and who tried to kill himself with a razor when he was apprehended. A little later two" more Italians were caught. One of them used to bring in cocaine, morphine and heroin from Germany by smuggling it in a false hump, with which apparent deformity he would easily pass the Customs officials at the frontier. The other dealt rather in opium, and used to obtain it by frequent journeys - to the post at Marseilles. A humble purveyor of the drug, who lias also been arrested, was a newsboy, who used to visit the Montmartre restaurants. Those who gave the 6ign by paying for their newspaper with a ten-franc note instead of with a modest coin, would find within its folds a little sachet of the fatal "snow." The most important arrest, however, was that made at Strasbourg of a captain in the German navy, who has already been convicted in France for the same trafficHe was accompanied by a French gendarme, actually in uniform, and by another gendarme who had retired and had been engaged as chauffeur. Tne trio were endeavouring to pass into The country no less than. 10 kHogrammes of cocaine, which was found by the police in the car. This is the largest single consignment which has ever been seized.