World-wide Drug Ring Smashed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31269, 16 January 1967, Page 13

World-wide Drug Ring Smashed

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) SYDNEY, January 15. A world-wide multi-million dollar heroin smuggling ring with its headquarters in Sydney was smashed yesterday. Police in America and Australia swooped simultaneously in Miami, New York and Sydney and arrested 16 people. Arrested in Sydney after police raided 10 homes in eight suburbs were six men and one woman.

They were charged with the forging and uttering of passport applications and making false statements in passport applications.

Five men—two of them Australians—and a woman were arrested in New York, and two former Australian Commonwealth policemen were arrested in New York. They face charges varying from passport violation to smuggling narcotics. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announcing the American arrests named Sydney as the centre of the world-wide heroin smuggling ring. Australian Customs officers said Sydney had been used as the “clearing house” because of the difficulty in getting narcotics out of Far Eastern

ports directly into the United States. It was believed that using Australian passports, the couriers found it relatively easier to slip drugs past United States Customs and narcotic officials. The Australian couriers used false papers and aliases to smuggle the heroin into America and England. Four Americans in New York acted as distributors for the gang. The smashing of the drug ring resulted from a tip received in Sydney last December. Commonwealth officials informed the United States Narcotics Bureau, who sent, a man to Sydney at Christmas to co-ordinate the work of the two bodies. For a month, Commonwealth police officers and Customs men quietly gained information. They went to a

magistrate and obtained 12 search warrants. The Deputy Commonwealth Police Commissioner, Mr J. Davis, in Canberra, kept in close touch with Inspectors R. Watt and N. Heland in Sydney. On Friday night the police received notice to move. Police Swoop At 4 a.m. yesterday 25 plain clothes officers met at the Commonwealth police headquarters. They were joined by five Customs men. For an hour the two inspectors briefed the men. In unmarked radio-equip-ped patrol cars they then swooped on 12 homes. They arrested six men and a middle-aged woman. From one house police took a number of documents and printing devices. Those under arrest will appear before a special Commonwealth Court tomorrow. Last December, Australian police were investigating a group of Australians suspected of handling forged passports and uncovered evidence that a narcotics ring was operating in Sydney. Its members were using forged passports to enter Hong Kong, where they obtained the heroin and took it to the United States. Some of the alleged smugglers flew to London on their way to New York, and British Customs were also brought into the investigation.