SMUGGLING

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

SMUGGLING

Every day throughout the year, while the public goes about its ordinary business, vigilant watch is kept at British ports and along the coasts for smugglers. The British Customs Service can never relax, for in every suitcase or bale of goods may be contraband. Tobacco heads the list as the most often-smuggled commodity. The Customs must prevent the importation of musk-rats, opium and hashish, banned literature, advertisements of lotteries, foreign, coins other than gold and silver ones, fictitious stamps and instruments for making them, and foreign reprints of copyright books which the copyright owner has requested shall not be imported. The general rule governing the disposal of confiscated property is that it shall be sold. If goods have a reasonable market and have no defects in themselves, they are always sold, usually by auction, and the proceeds go to the Crown. Horses, for Instance, shipped under some fraudulent Customs dodge, are sold. Only if, for a special reason, it would be against the public interest to put certain goods into circulation are they destroyed.