TRAFFIC IN DRUGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21414, 11 February 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRAFFIC IN DRUGS

MILLIONS OF MONEY . LEADERS' PLOTS EXPOSED AMAZING INGENUITY Last month' was expected to see the publication in Cairo of the most impressive and best-documented indictments of the international drug traffic ever drafted. This is the annual report furnished to the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior by the English Chief of the Egyptian Police, Major-General T. W. Russell, a nephew of the. Duke of Bedford. As an exposure of human baseness and criminal ingenuity it surpasses the most realistic " crook novel ever written. The report which Russell Pasha has prepared will contain photographic reproductions of documents seized on arrested drug traffickers. These lay bare the whole inside story of their cosmopolitan organisation. Their communication codes, devices, disguises, smuggling methods, difficulties, doubts, and dangers are all disclosed. Ten thousand copies of the report were to be printed in Arabic, French, and English, for propaganda and educational purposes, and it was expected that it would be available to the public about the middle of February. Result of Vigorous Campaign

This unveiling of the entire organisation and identity of the chief dope-sell-ing rings in Europe is the culmination of the vigorous campaign which has been carried on during the last year by the Egyptian Central Narcotic Intelligence Bureau. The revelations in the report were expected to cause extreme perturbation in some Western European countries. _ , The present position, as described to Mr. 0. Ward Price, correspondent of the Daily Mail, by Russell Pasha himself, is that the drug traffickers are "on the run." This is due to the better coordination of work by certain countries, including Egypt. The centre of manufacture of contraband drugs is always moving. From France and Switzerland it was recently moved to Turkey. Now it has been moved again. Evidence is forthcoming to show the League of Nations Commission on this traffic that another Balkan country is now the centre of the world dropg trade. " China and the United States are the world's two greatest markets for dope," Russell Pasha said. 11 Profits Tunning into millions sterling can now be proved to have been made in the China market, and it is European groups of smugglers who are shipping the drugs out there. " Unless international co-operation against these drug-runners can he secured, they are practically in/vulnerable. Cases have even occurred in which diplomatic privilege has been abused as cover for this traffic. This confers the advantage of secrecy in all their communications by post, cable, or wireless. In most European countries there is no extradition for drug trafficking." Huge Profits In the Traffic The men most active in the drug traffic in Egypt are of Greek nationality. Curiously enough, there has so far been litllft violence in their competition, such as prevails among the bootleggers of America, though signs of armed l'esistancc are beginning to manifest themselves. Several Egyptian policemen have recently been killed in fights with drug smugglers. The huge profits realised in the trade have left room for all to work without mutual jealousy, for heroin, which costs £lO a pound to make, is sold by the manufacturer to the smuggler at £7O. The smuggler passes the same quantity on to his agent in the country where he operates for between £IBO and £2OO, and the price which this amount of drug may fetch when retailed among addicts by a long chain of sub-agents is very much higher. The golden days of the drug traffickers are rapidly coming to an end, however. After the appearance of v Russoll Pasha's report, it is believed that the most prominent of them —who must by now be very wealthy men, and who are aware of the damning character of the material which has been seized" and is now about to be published—are preparing to retire from the business with their ill-gotten gains.