£24,000 FINE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 February 1925, Page 9

£24,000 FINE.

PENALTY ON WOMAN. Mrs. Irving Bloomingdale, wife of a partner in rViessi’s JLJloomnigdale Bros-, one or tne greatest department stores in New Yoi'K, has been ordered to pay i24,UX) for smuggling jewels and gowns into the country. U'hen Mrs. Jtsloomingdale, with her husband and child, arrived at New York in the Cunard liner Aquitania on November 14, undeclared jewels and gowns worth £12,000 were found in her luggage and seized. i&he left her maid to pass her trunks through the Customs. The maid insisted that the goods, including twenty magnificent pearls, were purchased in America.

After investigation, the authorities decided that the goods were bought aboard and condemned them as smuggled.

It is alleged that a clerk iu-a. shop in Paris, where jewels were bought, noitfied the New York Customs officials, thereby leading to the seizure. The American Government pays 25 per cent, of the duty collected to informers, and thus it is practically impossible for an American to make a large purchase anywhere in Europe without it being reported by shop clerks who hope for a reward if the purchaser attempts to smuggle the goods home. The clerk who informed about Mrs. RWimingdale’s purchases will receive £6900. Tt is stated that in the past eighteen months European clerks have received £200,000 in this way for betrvinpr customers.

Part of the £24.000 which Mrs. B'oomingdale is ordered to nav is unpaid dutv and the rest penalty monev Tf she refuses to nay the goods will Up cmPseated, making one of the most ,-nil'll,le seizures in +l’° history of Hv> New A'ork Custom House.