DRUG GANG

Hokitika Guardian, 17 February 1930, Page 8

DRUG GANG

SMUGGLING ON FRONTIER

GENEVA, December 14

The Swiss police have unmasked what is stated to be the biggest organisation for illicit trafficking in drugs yet known in Switzerland. Twenty-four men and women, including a doctor and two chemists, have been arrested, and it is understood that this gang forms only one small link in a huge chain operating through out Europe.

A fortnight ago the Egyptian authorities discovered that vast quantities of drugs were finding their way into that counrty from Basle. The Basle police arrested a German chemist and his wife as they returned from a visit to Milan. A search of the German’s laboratory revealed that the manufacture 'of heroin and derivatives of cocaine was being conducted on a huge scale.

“COLOURING MATTER.” Ramifications of the organisation have now been discovered at Zurich, Lugano, and Geneva, and in Germany France, Italy, and Eygp—in all of which arrests have either been made or are pending.

Twenty of the arrests yesterday took nhce at Zurich, all the accused being addicted to drugs or engaged in the traffic.

They also arrested a local doctor and a chemist, the latter of whom isstated to have manufactured narcotics greatly in excess of the quantity allowed under the official permit. A search of laboratory afforded clues which enabled the Swiss and Italian police to trace several persons engaged in passing narcotics across the Italo-Swiss front-

It is stated that on nearly every occasion tjie drugs were camouflaged ns collouring matter from which tin could he easily abstracted on arrival at their destination.

Die enormous profit made bv th° traffickers is shown by the fact that heroin and cocaine, for which th°v r>-' £4B per kilogramme (about 2 1-filh.' were retailed for as much as £BOO per kilogramme. Although Switzerland’"! hVitunnt" needs are only about 201 bof heroin '•earlv, the output is known to he nc ly I,ooolb.