SECRETS REVEALED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 2 (Supplement)

SECRETS REVEALED

RACKETEERS IN BRITAIN WHOLESALE SMUGGLING UNDERWORLD OF BIG CITIES FORTUNES MADE FROM DRUGS John Citizen, who reads his morning paper on the way to the office, and emiles comfortably at lurid accounts of gunmen and racketeers on the New york East Side, would hot feel so comfortable if he knew what is happening in the underworld of London and half-a-dozen ' provincial cities of England j writes Mr. Cecil Bishop, late of the Criminal Investigation Department, Nejv. Scotland Yard, One of the 1 biggest rackets this side of the Atlantic concerns smuggling, from the petty passing over of lingerie and jewellery, to the illegal import of arms arid dope. There are small men, mere go-betweens, who clean up a comfortable £lO 'to £2O a week, but the organisers behind them obtain really money.

For example, there have of recent months been an increasing number of cases }h which criminals have used firearms. Bow. do they get them ? Their existence was officialy admitted, but it 13 aisserted that once the first supply of Ammunition, is used the . gunmen can get no more. . - , This is not the case. Month after month a regular chain of tourists, men and women, cross to English ports by day or week-end tickets. With them come revolvers aod automatics, with plenty of ammunition. These weapons are bought in Belgium, where there are few restrictions; for so little as 10s apiece. >. Opium Dealing Yet in certain Soho restaurants they retail at £lO each. Who reaps the harvest v save the whole-time smuggling organiser, in most cases a highly " respectable " man? It is a paying racket, and one which neither the Customs 'officers nor the police can yet whnljy control i Yet another branch which spreads its tentacles throughout every port and every big city in, the land concerns the import of opium and what are called the " esthers." You will' find dope fiends in Cardiff, Newcastle, Hull and Liverpool. And wherever are dope fiends are also the " runners " who sell them " decks " of insidious heroin and cocaine at prices which give the racketeers a profit of some hundreds per cent. ->'»

. No sooner is one " runner " marked down, and pulled in " than another .—usually, a. woman, takes his place. There is one - portion. of the Charing Cross Road in London which is notorious as a haunt.of dope dealers.: •' *. Always-'the men at the back of the organisations remain hidden, and their identity is.not known even to those who do the peddling. London is far "cleaner" than it was twelve months ago, but as a result certain provincial cities have been' made minor centres for distribution! Use of Yachts Some time ago it was known that small yachts were being used for the carrying traffic. It is so easy to secrete a single pound of dope, worth many pounds an ounce; thus it comes into the country in a continuous stream through channels, some small, others large, but which can never be entirely, closed.-

When' yabhting I have myself been tactfulry approached and offered very good remuneration to run a small " cargo." The Coastguard Service has been greatly reduced, and so it is that

coastwise yacht owners find a new and remunerative trade. Half-a-dozen flat packets are landed in a dinghy one night in misty rain that shrouds the boat.

On shore 'is a man on a motor-cycle, maybe in a grocer's delivery van, or a > private two-seater. Within a few hours heroin sufficient to dope a thousand ncople is distributed in London and the Midlands. The racketeer haß got away with it again, and will make hundreds of pounds over that isolated deal. Customs Helpless One side-line in the smuggling game concerns watches, jewellery and silks. If you have watched a week-end boat disgorging hundreds of eager passengers at Ostend 'you might understand that no Customs Service in the world could hope to examine each one on the return trip. That xb, of course, unless they were three times as numerous as the staff at our ports. I have known three girls who for at least a year made regular trips to the Continent. They returned with hidden lingerie, with" watches and occasionally stolen jewellery. Now and then they would geff the order to " lay off," which meant they would go through carrying nothing of value. Invariably at such times they would be held up and searched! How the racketeer behind the scenes got -his information I have not the slightest idea, but it was right up to the minute in accuracy. Then they would begin again, and I should think that in a year each of those girls must have brought hundreds of pounds worth of profit to the heads of the gang. When "you remember that the racketeers employ not three but probably fifty agents, many of whom are changed from time to time, you can get some estimation of the volume of contraband traffic which gets through the net. Some idea, too, of the enormous amount of money which is yearly lost in revenue! Made His " Pile " It was only recently that I met a crook whom I had not seen for years. He was drinking a liqueur and coffee in a Strand restaurant, and grinned cheerily on seeing me. " Sit down and have one for'old times' sake," he urged. " I have been on the straight since my . last spell ' inside.' " I knew that well enough, but questioned him keenly as to how it was he appeared so affluent. ' I do not mind telling you now," he replied, " because I have made a nice little pile and have just invested in a snug business in North London. I have been acting as head agent in Brussels for a dope gang." " Pretty dangerous ?" I suggested. He smiled and shook hut head. " Not if you keep your eyes open and know how to spend money!" He rubbed forefinger and thumb together in significant fashion. "It is the easiest thing m tho world, and as safe as houses. Remember that it is tho earners and runners who take the risks!" He was right. No matter how many men girls are trapped by police and Customs, there are always a hundred more to be found only too keen on earning big money. Probably they would never dream of taking the stuff themselves, and perhaps—lot us hope so.—they do not realise what their action means for poor wretches all over Britain. Meanwhile the merry game of racketeering goes forward to the rustle of five pound notes. The public deludes itself into • believing that all sorts of aoiTors happen in America, but never in England. If they only knew!