TRICKING SMUGGLERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1933, Page 11

TRICKING SMUGGLERS

CUSTOMS OFFICER’S FINDS. The most watchful Boy Scout will be envious of the vigilance of the Customs officer in Melbourne who noticed that a woman leaving a liner in a fur coat recently had walked on amid <1 crowd of friends on hour earlier with nothing over her costume (says the Argus.) But the officials are unmoved. “It is all in a day’s work,” said one. “We have to keep our eyes open when a bulging pocket may hold sufficient opium to supply a den for a week, or an innocent stack of timber may conceal a bale of silk. The Tanda looks innocent enough at the wharf, but yesterday we found hidden among the dunnage about 4000 cigarettes wrapped in small packets, 500 cigars, and 20 yards of valuable silk.” There is no end to the goods which have been confiscated at the Victoria dock and Port Melbourne by the watchful Customs man. The haul of the last few months includes several fur coats, bales of silk, many pounds of tobacco, a few parrots, some opium, two tins of cocaine, and a cuckoo clock.

The clock, an elaborately-carved instrument, was found tied round a man’s waist and bulging out in front under his overcoat as he walked. The ineptitude of a member of a gang of stevedores aroused the suspicion of the officials, and led to the discovery of one of the largest packages of opium. The presence of a suspicious bicycle betrayed the first known attempt to smuggle the dangerous drug cocaine into Australia. A tight waistcoat led to the discovery of 30 yards of silk round a passenger’s waist, and a slight limp in the gait of a Chinese steward betrayed the fact that his shoes were stuffed with opium. The smuggler of animals or birds presents an easier target to the eyes of the searcher. A suspicious officer recently searched a steamer in vain for some love-birds which he believed to be on board. As a last resource he wandered around the dock whistling softly. A shrill answering whistle rewarded him. Under a stack of dunnage he found a pair of crates holding 15 pairs of the precious birds, which are strictly contraband.