Putting boot into smuggling

Press, 30 August 1985, Page 18

Putting boot into smuggling

By

CHARLES FRASER,

Features International

Behind the customs barrier at every international airport, stands a new breed of law-enforcer: the men with the downcast eyes. They are not sleepy or depressed, but members of what is being called the “Heavy Shoe Squad.” Their job is not to catch the package-tour traveller with the extra bottle of duty-free in his suitcase. Instead, they are after passengers who are dragging their feet.

For as airline smugglers get more and more ingenious in their methods of shifting contraband, customs experts have found there is often gold or drugs in them there heels. , , . Recently, “tourists” claiming they had nothing to declare, have been caught with gold coins concealed in the base of their shoes. , . , Now customs men keep a special watch on all those who shuffle, hobble, or limp their way off aircraft. The “heavy shoe trick” has joined a long list of dodges used by men and women who make a living out of smuggling. A group of four pretty women who recently arrived at Heathrow Airport gave themselves away by their walk. “It was not so much a sexy wiggle as a John Wayne stagger,” says a customs man. The women turned out to have hundreds of South African krugerrands sewn into their underclothes. They were all sent to prison. <ter a tip-off, an Italisfc customs officer supervising the arrival

of cargo at Rome airport recently took a special interest in a shipment of crocodile skins from South America, intended for the local leather industry. The skins, as usual, were dusted with a white preservative powder, but one had a particularly thick coating. On examination, it turned out to be cocaine.

It was a highly organised system in which the drug was recovered from the skins by vacuum cleaner, before being sold on the streets for more than $265,000. Customs officers from all over the world recently attended a secret seminar in Bristol, southwest of England, to discuss smuggling connected with the wildlife trade. They heard about the case of a cage of wild parrots being shipped out of a South American country — quite legally. On arrival at their destination, some of the birds were dead.

The shippers were banking on the assumption that customs would simply accept the birds died during the journey. In fact, the carcases were investigated - and found to be stuffed with drugs. Sometimes, it is the birds themselves which are smuggled across frontiers. A chauffeur-driven limousine about to enter Genpany was stopped by French cujtpms officers. Inside were four M ra b

diplomats — and three falcons, each worth more than $25,000 on the black market.

Because of their diplomatic status, the men were allowed to go free, but the birds were confiscated and released into the wild. West Germany is reckoned to be the centre of a thriving market in smuggled rare birds. Dealers obtain them from all parts of the world, then ship them to the Middle East. Once there, the birds, or even fertile eggs, can fetch up to $200,000 a time from collectors and falconers. Customs men often find birds drugged, with their beaks taped and concealed in smugglers’ clothing. One women had an eagle chick stuffed into her tights. A car stopped at a frontier post had an assortment of rare birds hidden

inside its spare tyre. Big time smugglers come from all walks of life. At one major British airport, people arrested recently included senior army officers, clergymen, and a judge. A woman’s artificial limb was filled with cannabis. The wheels of a man’s wheelchair was full of heroin. An elderly blind man was caught with heroin, and admitted being a veteran “courier” for the drugs trade. i

“It’s a regular battle,” says a customs man. “We keep catching people, but we know from the amount of heroin and other drugs on the streets that sumgglers are getting through. “The trouble is they are lured by the money. They can buy heroin for

$5,000 in Pakistan and sell that same amount — about one kilo — for $650,000 on big-city streets in the west.” Throughout the world, penalties for drugs smuggling are being increased to try to curb the trade. China, with a different kind of smuggling problem, has decided to crack down hard on offenders. The Government in Peking has become worried about the vast number of art treasures which have been smuggled out to Macao and Hong Kong in recent years. The market, in those two cities for traditional Chinese art has become intense. Many of the objects sold over the past five years are said to have come from museums inside China.

It is Spain which has one of the i trickiest problems facing customs officers. The jails in ports near the I African coast are constantly full of pregnant women. They are suspected of smuggling drugs into the ! country from Africa — but, under Spanish law, they cannot be Xrayed or examined. On a coach which arrived recently at the port of Algeciras all it 40 women on board said they were M pregnant . . .