COCAINE IN CIGARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21278, 3 September 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

COCAINE IN CIGARS

SMUGGLERS' LATEST TRICK PACKED IN PETROL TINS OUTWITTING CUSTOMS OFFICERS Cocaine smuggling into England on a ■well-organised and elaborate scale has lately been taking place in the Essex estuaries, says a correspondent of the Daily Express. With fair regularity stocks of cocaine have been landed at a lonely part of the sea coast and brought, to London by motor-car. The cocaine is packed under the outer tobacco leaf wrapping at the pointed end of Dutch cigars. Those cocaine cigars were on sale a few weeks ago at several of the London cafes and restaurants in which dope pedlars work. The cocaine cigars are made in Holland and are taken to England by foreign vessels. After the cigars have been packed in petrol tins, which are carefully sealed, the smuggling ship—which carries a normal commercial cargo as well—enters an estuary, and the weighted and buoyed tins are dumped over the side near a piominent mark. €< . Immediately a small boat puts off from the shore and the petrol tins are hauled up, while the foreign ship proceeds up the estuary, where it is boardeu ana examined by Customs officera. . Three cars are known to have been used to take the innocent-looking petrol tins and their smuggled contents to London. One car was driven by a pretty g' l '- A man who had been approached by the London syndicate behind the smuggling to assist in running cargoes states that petrol tins and cigars were chosen as the " vehicles " for the cocaine because

they were " fairly safe." " No_ one suspects petrol tins in a car," he eaidy." and even if the hidden tobsicco were diiicovered, I doubt whether the cocaine would be found. A Customs officer who examines cigars will always break a cigar across the middle. In doing that he would not come on tho cocaine. A charge of smuggling tobacco would be made against the person caught, and not a charge of smuggling prohibited drugs, which is a much more serious offence, punishable by imprisonment. Smuggling tobacco in comparatively smail quantities can be met with a fine. " The profits of this smuggled cocaine must bo enormous," said' the informant. " I know that the cigars are sold at £3 apiece to drug addicts in London, and I was offered £SO to help ' run * a single consignment." Customs officers franklv admit that smuggling in Essex is quite likely. " I know it goes on," said one official, " but bow can we prevent it ? We should need the coastguards back again to accomplish anything. When certain information recently came to the Customs district office there was a dramatic round up of all motor-cars on

some of the Essex roads, but nothing was found. Spirit and tobacco smuggling, it is stated, is persistent. Tobacco is brought up to the river mouth in small kegs, which are-wrapped in a tarpaulin and sunk with a weight of rock salt. The salt gradually dissolves in the water, and the covered kegs rise' and are hauled ashore.