Opium Confirmed As Content Of Package

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32035, 9 July 1969, Page 1

Opium Confirmed As Content Of Package

One of the packages Customs men seized in the Straat Singapore at Lyttelton contained prepared opium, the Collector of Customs in Christchurch (Mr F. O. Spackman) said yesterday after he had received a verbal report from the Government analyst. .

The analyst had also advised him that the net weight of the packages was just under 101 b.

The Government Analyst (Mr N. P. Alcorn) said his report was only a preliminary and there bad been no investigation of the purity of the drug. Confirmatory tests on all packages would take some time. Thirty-two packages had to be examined. Latest estimates of the value of the shipment are SNZI74O on the illicit wholesale market in Hong Kong but it is estimated to be worth 100 times that or $174,000 on the New Zealand retail market. MORE CONTRABAND? Customs officers are convinced that there is more contraband’ aboard the Straat Singapore, which berthed at Wellington yesterday, according to the Press Association. They intended to search the ship tomorrow, the inspector of preventive services (Mr A, T. McKay) said last night.

“When we finish we will go over it again, and we will keep searching the ship until it leaves on Friday,” he said. Customs officers at Lyttelton also seized 80 watches and 10 radios worth $lOOO, and another raid when the ship berthed at Dunedin produced more radios and jewellery. On June 1, 1965, 401 b of raw opium and $4OOO worth of radios and watches were seized aboard the Dutch freighter Tjitarun. The opium was worth $240,000 in its raw state but would have been worth much more once it had been refined. At 4 p.m. yesterday soon after the Straat Singapore berthed at Aotea Wharf, 14 Customs officers went aboard to begin the search.

Customs officers were doing no more than a routine check on the Dutch ship Straat Banka in Lyttelton yesterday. The vessel is a sister ship of the Straat Singapore. They are owned by the Royal Interocean Line and are manned by Chinese crews with Dutch officers.

A spokesman for the Customs Department said in Lyttelton yesterday that a close watch had been kept on both vessels when they were together in Dunedin after the search of the Straat Singapore, but that it was unlikely that there were any narcotics aboard the Straat Banka.

“In Dunedin a check was kept on movements between vessels, but at the moment we are keeping only the normal routine check that we do with all Asian crews,” he said. The Straat Banka has not come from Asian ports as did the Straat Singapore, but from Durban, Beira and other East African ports by way of Australia.

The spokesman said that in

view of this route it was even more unlikely that there would be narcotics aboard.