BLACK MARKET IN CLOTHING

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 3

BLACK MARKET IN CLOTHING

POWERFUL “RING” IN AUSTRALIA

(Fiom Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, December 30. A powerful black market “ring” of foreigners, with Sydney its headquarters, is believed to be operating in the Australian clothing trade. A hint of the ramifications of the “ring” was given by two Brisbane (Queensland) business executives after a buying trip to Sydney. The operators, they said, have never been convicted for breaches of the rationing or prices regulations, and seem to have an effective method of smothering up their tracks. The group is astute, wealthy, and powerful, and as a cover to its illegal trading, carries on a legitimate business. By falsifying the books, or not making entries at all, it is able to divert materials, and even made-up articles, to the black market. Some of the materials are pillaged from ships and wharves. So powerful is the ‘ ring that it distributes the black market goods through ordinary trade channels—wholesalers, retailers and travellers. Hawkers make a door to door canvass in the cities and suburbs and others travel into the country to tempt farmers’ wives with goods they have not seen for years. The high prices asked for the goods are offset by no request for ration cdupons.