Former diplomat smuggled heroin

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33407, 13 December 1973, Page 17

Former diplomat smuggled heroin

(N.Z, Press Association—Copyright) PARIS, December 12. A former French diplomat has confessed to smuggling heroin worth about SNZ6m into the United States three years ago, while American narcotics officials were trying in vain to convince France that some of her diplomats were involved in drug-smuggling rings.

Gerard L’Hote. aged 50, a former counsellor at the French Embassy in New Delhi, has also admitted forging French diplomatic passports to enable him to smuggle money to Swiss banks for wealthy Indians. L’Hote has been arrested on charges of falsifying official documents, but he cannot be tried on the drug • charge because of a three-. 'year statute of limitations in (France on drug crimes. The police say that L’Hote (confessed that when in diplo'matic service in Algiers he [joined a drug ring, that he (smuggled about 40lb of heroin into the United States on two journeys made with diplomatic immunity in 1970, and

that. he was paid about SNZI2.OOO. Suspected by narcotic agents in New York who reported his movements to the French. L’Hote switched to smuggling drugs into the United States via Tokyo and Honolulu. L’Hote’s downfall came when he flew to Belgium last month: through a baggagehandler’s mistake, his lug-, gage was confused with' Zurich-bound baggage, and a Customs officer opened it. It contained a diplomatic passport in L’Hote’s name. The police searched his luxurious Paris apartment, and found several false diplomatic passports, and stamps for making them.