BIG OPIUM HAUL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 12 May 1925, Page 9

BIG OPIUM HAUL.

RECORD SEIZURE IN SYDNEY. TOTAL VALUE £15,000. Nearly 1500 tins of opium, valued roughly at '£15,000, for Die drug sells at £lO a tin, were found by the customs officers on the steamer Arafura which arrived at Sydney from Eastern ports last week. It. wa s the biggest haul that has ever ever been made in Australia, and, for that matter, it i s probable that no bigger haul has been made in the world.

Customs officers could not believe at first that all the small tins they found really contained opium, as they did not think that the traffickers would be so. bold as to endeavour to land such a quantity from one steamer. Prowling-about near the part of the ship where the opium was found, the searchers noticed an anxious-looking Chinese, one of the crew of the steamer. He was questioned, and, as the result of something he told the officers, was arrested.

Not many minutes after the-steamer had been moored to the wharf, Inspector Clifford, of the Customs Department, Chief-Searcher G. Brown, and 12 other Customs officials, boarded the Arafura, and commenced a search for contraband cargo. They had alVnost completed their search without finding anything .to arouse suspicion, when one of the searchers, who was probing under the chain locker in the forepeak of the vessel with a stick, felt something soft. The anchor was “up,” and whatever was hidden in the locker could not be extracted until the anchor was lowered. At the request of Inspector Clifford this was done, and the officers found that the locker was stacked with cases, tins, casks, and bags, and. these, on being opened, were found to contain the opium. Not many people on the steamer knew of the sensational discovery that had been made, and the opium was quietly lowered into the Customs launch and removed to the Customs House. There are men in Sydney recognised a s being “respectable citizens,” who, it is asserted, have built fine homes for themselves out of money made in the infamous trade. They run a big risk, but the profits are big. These “masters” of the trade are not the men who suffer when the police or Customs officials confiscate ( opium or make arrests. It is their agents who pay the penalty. But the agents make good money, too, and they also are prepared to run the rysks. So big are the operations of these men that the great "haul made on the Arafura will not dismay them. They are prepared for such things, and will continue to carry on. “Where doe s all the opium come from?” is a question often asked. The police know that most of it comes from Chinese and Japanese ports hut there are many islands in the East where it is smuggled on hoard steamers The terrible feature of the whole business is that not only Chinese, but white men and women smoke opium in this country. Day after day the evil is getting worse, and if the traffic is to be stopped immediate and drastic action in’ll st be taken. The ooium, which was contained in 10 sacks, was subsequently burned by the customs authorities in the Moore Park incinerator.