CONTRABAND TRAFFIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 22, 26 January 1940, Page 6

CONTRABAND TRAFFIC

ORGANISED PRACTICE

USE OF DISGUISE

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 24.

Figures of the traffic in contraband by letter and parcel which have special interest in the light of the recent correspondence between the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom regarding the censorship of mails were made public this evening.

It was stated that in three: months

to' January 12 25,000 parcels from the American continent, mostly from the United States, were found to contain such contraband as food and clothing. In the same period 25,000 "samples" were seized containing, besides food and clothing, such items as fats, films, maps, and jewellery^

In many cases the parcels contained "hampers" of groceries sold by German firms in the United States, at prices calculated here to representabout five or six times the actual cost of the contents against a guarantee of delivery to the recipient. But the evidence suggests that such "comforts," when they have evaded the Allied contraband control, rarely, if ever, reach the intended beneficiaries in Germany, for they are seized vby the German Customs.

This practice has reached the proportions of an organised traffic. The parcels are dispatched under .such disguises as "industrial samples" v arid "designs for stained-glass windows." One consignment seized in the parcel post was found to consist of pearls valued at £8000.