“KNIFE-CARPETS”

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 October 1928, Page 7

“KNIFE-CARPETS”

TRAP FOR LIQUOR SMUGGLERS.

A novel new weapon has been Invented by the Helsingfors Police Department to light liquor smugglers, who are very active in Finland, writes Hie Helsingfors correspondent of the '“Chicago Tribune.” This new weapon is proving very effective, the Acting Chief of Police, Karl Soinio, informed me, proudly displaying an iron plate half an inch thick, six feet long, and. six inches wide, from which protruded a row of wicked-looking knife blades. The instrument, which is hinged in the middle to facilitate easy handling, is designed to lay across the road to rip the tires of motor-cars which fail to stop in response to police signals. These “knife-carpets” as they are called in Finland, are being manufactured for the undoing of their brethren by rum-smugglers who are at present serving sentences in Helsingfors Prison.

The first to be experimented with near Helsingfors made a capture which set the town laughing. One of the generals of the Finnish Staff, whilst “joy-riding,” failed to heed a policeman’s signals, and, consequently, had all the tires of his car ripped open. • • ... Tn the courtward of the Helsingfors

main police station the Police Chief showed me fifteen motor-cars which the police have captured with loads of liquo? within the city recently. Helsingfords, whose population is slightly

more than 200,000, has 300 persons engaged in “bootlegging,” and at least forty houses inhabited entirely by the smugglers and their families, according to Police Chief Soinio, who believes there is a powerful clique of wealthy Finns directing the business of sup-plv-try with smuggled liquor. In the past the police have been handicapped because of the lack of means to combat the smuggling, but new measures, including the supply of new fast motor-boats, motor-car patrols, and the appointment of Prohibition enforcement agents, have resulted in the capture of 20,000 quarts of smuggled liquor during the past two months. The only persons who are delighted with the present situation are motorboat enthusiasts, who attend the Government auction of the captured smugglers’ speed boats and buy them at a fraction of their real value.