TRAVELLER DID NOT DECLARE OPALS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33534, 15 May 1974, Page 11

TRAVELLER DID NOT DECLARE OPALS

A Swiss national who brought 198 opals worth $904 into New Zealand on Thursday pleaded not guilty in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday to charges of smuggling and (in the alternative) making a false customs declaration.

The defendant. Hans Peter Taufer. aged 27, an electrician (Mr M J. Glue), was convicted on the declaration charge, fined $3O. and ordered to pay solicitor’s fees of $l5. The charge of smuggling was dismissed. An order was made that the opals be returned to Taufer. Mr F, G. Patterson. S.M., said it was obvious from the evidence that, the defendant had made a false declaration, and that he had not intended to sell the opals. “While the circumstances under which he w’as apprehended were highly suspicious, I don’t think he intended to deprive the revenue of Its just duties,” he said. Mr G. K. Panckhurst appeared for the Customs Department. Alan Hampton Mills, chief examining officer for the Customs Department in Christchurch, said in evidence that at 7.55 p.m. on Friday he was present when a city jeweller handed the defendant a package containing a number of packets of opals. He heard the jeweller say that he was not intersted in purchasing them. The witness said he approached

the defendant In Manchester Street, identified himself as a customs officer, and asked the defendant where he obtained the opals. The defendant said that he had bought them in Australia, but did not declare them on his arrival in New Zealand on Thursday because they were his personal property. He was not aware that he had to declare them. The witness said he told the defendant that the opals were forfeit because he had failed to declare them. The defendant then handed over a package containing 167 opals, an opal ring, and a pendant. He gave an opal ring to his fiancee, who was with him at the time. He said it was hers. The defendant produced a second envelope which contained 25 unmounted opals and four mounted items. He at first told the witness he brought them to New Zealand in the hope of exchanging them for other stones, such as jade. He later admitted that he bought them about a year ago with the intention of selling them in Switzerland, but had decided to sell some in Christchurch after looking in shop windows. The duty payable on the opals was $433.

Cross-examined by Mr Glue, the witness said he saw the de-

fendant to The Rock Shop, to Manchester Street. When asked who had notified the Customs Department. the witness claimed privilege under the Customs Act, and declined to give his source of information. The defendant gave evidence that he was a native of Switzerland and lived near Zurich. He had been in Australia with his fiancee for three years, and had worked for a period in the opal fields, where he bought the opals he had with him. He said that he took the opals to the shop to exchange them for jade, or greenstone. He had no intention of selling them in New Zealand.