LOAD OF OPIUM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

LOAD OF OPIUM.

CARRIED BY SMUGGLER.

The existence of a powerful group of international drug traffickers, with headquarters in Paris, was revealed at Southampton when a young Spaniard, believed to be their dupe, was fined £250 and sent to prison for twelve months on a charge of smuggling opium. After the prisoner had left the dock it was learned that desperate efforts had been made in Paris to get into touch with him while he was on remand for a week at Winchester prison.

A letter sent by air mail from Paris, urging the prisoner to get into touch immediately with a woman in the French capital, was intercepted by the authorities. The Spaniard, Gumersindo Gandarillae (28), was charged with being in unauthorised possession of 1401b of raw opium, which was found in his three suitcases in the Customs shed at Southampton Do«ks when he landed from the United States liner President Harding. Mr. H. E. Braithwaite, deputy-town clerk, prosecuting, said that when asked by an assistant preventive officer if he had anything to declare, Gandarillas first gave the impression that he could not speak English, and then said he had lost the keys of the cases in Hamburg. Later he 6aid that the cases contained "black stuff."