DRUG TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 246, 18 October 1939, Page 5

DRUG TRAFFIC.

SYDNEY REVELATIONS.

OPIUM IN ROPE FENDER.

SURPRISE RAID ON CAFE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, October 12.

Following the arrest last week of Tang Huie, manager of the Tientsin Cafe, and the fine of £400 imposed on him for having prepared opium in his possession, revelations which read like a Hollywood film story have been made this week of investigations by the Drrig Squad of the Criminal Investigation Bureau into the trans-Pacific drug traffic. _ T'he detectives had known for a long time that opium was being sent in lartre quantities from China to Australia, where some of it was sold and the rest picked up by members of the crews of Pacific liners and taken to San Francisco. Some months ago this trade received a severe check when a seaman on one Pacific liner was arrested in Honolulu, found with opium in his possession and gaoled. -

Since then the detectives have been concentrating more on the traffic in Australia. Sheer accident gave then ail indication of how large the trade was. Late one night two Water Police officers at the picnic ferry wharf at Fort Macquarie saw two' men in a dinghy close to the sea wall. When the ]K>lice flashed a torch on the boat one man scrambled out of it and ran away towards Circrilar Qimy. The other, dropping something over the side of the boat, seized the oars and began to row madly into the harbour. The police rushed to their launch, but could not get the enjrine started right away, and by the time they had got it going the fugitive was nearing Kirribilli Point. The police launch was only a few yards behind when the man in the boat ran it aground and raced to a waiting car in which he drove off. .

Next day, at the place where they had first seen the boat, the police fished up what seemed t-o be a large rope fender, but when it was cut open 155 tins of prepared opium fell out. The police believed that it had been smuggled off a Chinese steamer then at Circular Q'lay, and was intended to be smuggled on to another steamer bound for Vancouver, where opium was then selling at £70 a tin. Detective Sent Abroad.

This lucky haul led to the widening of investigations with t'he aid of the police in Xew Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, America and England, and a Sydney detective was sent to continue inquiries in Suva and Honolulu. It is said that he came back with "leads" of such value that the "drug squad 7 ' in Sydney was able to discover the identity of the big men behind the Sydney drug trade. Their inquiries were, of course, not easily pursued, but they found a way round their difficulties. At one time, for example, while keeping a day and niwht watch on a Chinese cafe, they almost despaired of being able to obtain a line on certain men who visited the place. Xot only was the cafe watched by Chinese, but police also found themselves being watched by other Chinese lookouts for gambling dens. Then a detective had an inspiration and there appeared a constable in police uniform on pedestrian duty at the spot. The ruse was a great success for the Chinese paid no attention to him and the detectives were able to make their plans for a raid.

Careful plans lay behind their visit to the Tientsin Cafe. A man recommended by G-man in Honolulu was engaged as a seaman on an American steamer, and in it made several trips across the Pacific. When in Sydney he always visited the Tientsin Gafe and at last arranged to purchase some opium. The night he was to buy it, a man and a woman, obviously out for amnsement, went into the cafe and sat down at a table. The Chinese waiter could not fail to notice a strong smell of rum about the man, but he did not know that the man was a policeman, who had sprinkled rum over his clothes, and that his woman friend was a member of the women police. They watched while the American seaman discussed something with Tang Huie and as soonj as the Chinese went into -the kitchen, rushed in after him while the police-J

woman went downstairs to call detectives who had been waiting outside. One of them was Detective-Sergeant Gordon, and when Huie saw him he shrugged his shoulders and handed over a tin of opium. He knew Gordon well because the detective had his father, the owner of the cafe, convicted three times for a similar offence.

The Commonwealth Government ha* reported to the League of Nations that ■seizures of opium in Australia, and in American and Canadian ports from vessels trading with Australia, indicate that Australian ports, particularly Sydney, are used as points for the transhipment of drugs brought here ill steamers from Cl-ina. It is also reported that the possibility that Indian hemp (marihuana) is being cultivated somewhere in Australia is being carefully watched. The plant grows wild in several places in Australia.