CUSTOMS OFFICIALS DECLARE WAR ON WOMEN SMUGGLERS

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7412, 20 December 1930, Page 22

CUSTOMS OFFICIALS DECLARE WAR ON WOMEN SMUGGLERS

N intensive campaign to stop smuggling by passengers travelling to England from the Continent has been ordered by the Customs authori-

ties.

The chief object is to- catch the women who regularly buy dutiable dresses, undergarments, and stockings in Paris and elsewhere and bring them into England without declaring them. “Women provide us with our most difficult problems,” said a leading Customs official recently. "They glory in smuggling dTesses and underwear, and seem to think there is nothing wrong in the business. They do not realise that in addition to robbing the State they are doing infinite harm to British trade.

'""“A’ .large number of women who are interested in small shops in London travel to and from the Continent, and on their return each time bring in clothes which they say are for their own private use and on which they pay the private users’ duty. “Frequently, when we hold up a woman who has dutiable goods in her luggage, she says in mitigation, ‘Oh, hut I have worn them.’ "Recently London traders put forward to the Government figures which showed that on a conservative estimate no less than £300,000 a year was lost to the Customs revenue by this form of dishonesty—bringing in goods as private and then reselling them.”

“Prosecutions will be authorised whenever we discover women who are trying to evade the Customs.” It is the intention to take people who offend in this way to the police court so that they may be punished by the publicity as well as by a fine and the confiscation of their goods. Excuses and offers to pay the duty will not be accepted. “More prosecutions” is the instruction. “That is no answer at all. Everything of a dutiable nature —whether it has been 1 worn or not —must be declared and payment made on it. Recently the Customs officers have caught a number of women wearing two and three dresses and sets of underwear in the hope of bringing in their Paris purchases without paying. There was the case of a woman last week who wore no fewer than six sets of everything under her dress, including six pairs of new silk stockings. She said she was wearing them because she thought the crossing from Calais would be cold.

All goods which women attempt to smuggle are confiscated. The King’s warehouse of the Customs Department is stocked with expensive Paris dresses and lingerie which belonged to women smugglers.

The owners are given the chance of buying these goods back. Otherwise the articles are sold through trade channels.

Penalties for attempted smuggling consist of fines up to three times the original value of the goods, plus the duty which should have been paid, and forfeiture.