TRICKS OF SMUGGLERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 February 1930, Page 8

TRICKS OF SMUGGLERS

ACTIVITY IN BRITAIN. .Smuggling in Britain is on tlte increase, according to an official report issued by the Commissioners of Customs ami Excise. In the year which closed on March 31 last, no fewer than 8201 seizures of smuggled goods were made, while since then there have been several prosecutions, in one of which a woman who had smuggled 12 silk, dresses was lined a sum of £624. A customs officers who works along the South Coast and is responsible for many of the prosecutions which have followed the finding of dutiable goods, says:—“Tobacco and spirits easily lead, but latterly there has been what I can only describe as an epidemic, of silk smuggling. We have always been troubled with tobacco smugglers, but the other is a newer phase of attempting to defraud the revenue. Nor are the majority of culprits professional smugglers. Some move in the most exclusive circles of society; many are quite wealthy. “All manner of devices are used to circumvent our preventive offtters. I j

? knew, for example, of one woman who - seemed of unusual hulk, and who, ■ when searched by a woman officer, was s found to he wearing several dresses and pairs of stockings. “We have even discovered dresses crumpled up inside footballs, and in boxes which bore labels indicating that Hie contents wore such as were not liable to duty. “The excuses, when women are trapped. show considerable ingenuity. As a rule the woman who is caught, out assumes a role of surprise. Either she has m> idea that the goods should have been declared or she did not know that i they were among her luggage. “Something will have to he done to ( stop smuggling on our lonely coasts. The statistics show that it is rapidly ; increasing, ami arrangements are being made for an international congress ; on the subject.” \