BOOTLEG RING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23106, 3 August 1938, Page 13

BOOTLEG RING

103 MEN CHARGED NEW YORK SCANDAL PROFESSIONS INVOLVED DISTILLING OF LIQUOR By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright (Received August 2, 7.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, August 2 One hundred and three men, including policemen, Federal Treasury agents, doctors and druggists have been indicted by a 1' ederal Grand Jury on charges of distilling alcohol and brandies from materials such as shoe polish and cleaning fluids.

This is the result of the biggest bootleg round-up in the history of the country—even in the prohibition era —which covered the whole of the city. It revealed a ring in which hoodlums worked alongside apparently respectable professional men. Defendants are accused of defrauding the Government of at least £500,000 in taxes in a period of three and a-lialf years. Eighty-six of the defendants have been arrested and warrants are out for the others. Investigators state that the ring distributed 10,000 gallons of alcohol a week to druggists for prescriptions, to extract makers for resale to bakers, and to doctors for medical purposes, at half the regular price. After that the policemen members of the ring raided the purchasers and threatened to arrest them, thus extracting bribes from them.