DOPE PEDDLERS "ON THE RUN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

DOPE PEDDLERS "ON THE RUN."

SMUGGLING METHODS REVISED.

CI OSING NET CAUSES CHANGE — COCAINE HIDDEN IN FLOWERS — FABULOUS ROFI IIARrH E r7^R £ V?CTIIus ° RUGS BOUGHT FOR £280 — SEARCH FOR VICTIMS.

(By A SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR.)

Police activity following the ® ° murders has set Britain's drug peddlers "on the run" once more. They are being forced to devise ingenious new methods to fight the police and evade their net. Some of these were revealed to a special investigator who was sent into the underworld of London with special facilities for obtaining first-hand information. He obtained a card, written in Chinese, which proved to be a ' passport" into the "dope rings" of Britain «nd the Continent. _ Dope "peddlers" are racking their brains to discover new tricks to outwit the authorities. The determined push by the police has made it more difficult to obtain diugs. The expedients adopted to smuggle "dope" from the dealer to the, consumer are endless. Not long ago it was possible to buy in London cocaine made up in neatlylabelled tins that looked like tooth power. Those days are gone. The peddlers have to be much more "smart." Payment for "dope" and the delivery never takes place at the same time,; that is too dangerous. Tlio whole business is run on trust, but the peddlers know their victims dare not break faith. One result of the concentrated efforts of the police to stamp out the drug traffic is that prices have risen. Business Lines. The dope ring is run on organised business lines. A girl is the victim of drugs. When her supplies are running short she notifies her supplier. The reply is a note telling her to leave a £o note iflider the doormat of her flat.

When it has been collected there comes another note, telling her to lunch at a certain small restaurant on'a given day. She does so, and the neat little white packet is delivered to her under the bill.

In another case the method adopted was to place wrapped pilules of cocaine in the fingers of a glove which had been left by design on the driving seat of a car.

An original method was the concealment of cocaine in the "mouths" of antirrhinum blossoms. Bouquets of these flowers were regular presents to a woman.

These complicated deliveries are to protect the "brains" of the dope ring from a "squeal" by a victim. Even if the victim goes to the police, they get only one man in their net, and the organisation is not greatly disturbed.

The drug peddlers are often either known or suspected, and the pursuit of their deadly trade is a never-ending game o£ "hide and seek" with detectives. Sooner or later they are caught, but the problem is not ended there; some other peddler immediately steps in to take over the clientele of the trafficker who has been arrested. It is only by waiting until they get enough evidence to smash a ring that the police can keep the traffic tmder control. The "dope" racket depends for its supplies upon foreign contacts; it could not exist upon thefts from doctors' cars and occasional burglaries at surgeries and chemists' shops. The methods by which "dope" is carried are innumerable, and the ingenuity shown is endless. A harmless-looking book of poem's, with the centre of the leaves cut out, will provide a hiding place for a big supply worth many pounds. One of the most popular ways of circulating dope is so simple that it seldom goes wrong. Matchbox Secret. Two men are standing in a pubic house, with pots of Ibeer before them, smoking their pipes. One of them vainly endeavours to make his pipe draw. "Have you a match?" he asks. The other hands him a matchbox, and the first speaker, in extracting a match, also extracts a packet of "dope," which he conccals in the palm of his hand.

Drugs are sold in what are known as "decks," that is, packets. Prices vary according to the social and financial position of the buyer.

The lowest price is 10/ for a packet containing six grains of pure cocaine, mixed with four grains of phenacetin. The total content is therefore ten grains.

More often the price is £1 for a similar consignment.

The profits are huge. Cocaine costs £10 an ounce if bought that way. The wholesaler buys a kilo—nearly 2Jlb— for £35. He sells it for £280.

But the peddler —the retailer—makes a profit of hundreds per cent.

There are more than 15,000 grains to a kilo, so that the peddler, selling at £1 for six grains, makes £2500. Even, at 10/ for six grains the sum would he £1250.