DRUG SMUGGLING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20089, 4 May 1927, Page 10

DRUG SMUGGLING.

LEAGUE’S REPORT. ( FORTUNES FROM OPIUM TRAFFIC. (Feom Oua Own C LONDON, March 23. An illicit drug traffic, which can only ba characterised as enormous, still exists, it is stated by the report submitted to the Council of the League of Nations. The outflow of opium from China in large amounts embarrasses most seriously various adjoining countries. Drugs are smuggled into the Far East and elsewhere in huge quantities; the control in certain manufacturing and distributing countries, and even in certain countries which are primarily consuming countries, while steadily improving, is still, in fact, inadequate to prevent drugs from passing into the illicit traffic in very large quantities. In India, it is pointed out, it appears probable that the illicit traffic in cocaine amounts to as much as 40 times the legitimate imports. In the Far and Middle East large seizures have been made of drugs and of raw and prepared opium; in Europe. enormous quantities of drugs got into _ the hands of illicit traffickers. Large seizures have also been made in the United States of America. , FREE PORT FACILITIES. Facilities which the free port of Copenhagen afford have been taken advantage of for the purposes of the traffic. Illicit transactions reported to the League during the year- 1925, over a period of just under seven months, include consignments pf raw opium of over 65 tons, over 35200 zof heroin, 10,1950 zof morphine, and 6250 zof cocaine. Seizures woro_ made of 7900 z of heroin, 3500 z of cocaine, and 33000 zof opium. Among other recent seizures were 15 barrels of morphine. During the last few weeks the German police have discovered the existence of a band of international smugglers who have been carrying on a contraband traffic in many countries “to an almost unbelievable extent.” Orders for their drugs came for the most part from the Far East. The operations of the syndicate were conducted chiefly through the free port of Copenhagen. A later discovery by the same police will, the committee hopes “cast considerable light upon the methods employed by the contrabandists and upon their sources of supply,” but thn report gives no details 01 tnis discovery. CHINA AND EGYPT.

A report received by the commutes from Hongkong related to the operations of a syndicate _ there engaged in the smuggling of Chinese opium. The amount of opium in one consignment varied from 80,000 to 220,000 taels (a tael is roughly one and one-third English ounces). The amounts remitted in these operations were over £40,000 a month. _ The syndicate was offered 13 chests of opium by the Swatow Anti-opium Bureau if they chose to bid higher than £IB,OOO for them. The stock oi opium on hand in Tungking wag computed at from 1,300,000 to 1,300,000 taels. The Chief of the Cairo Police reported: “The figures show that the Egyptians are rapidly becoming a race of drug addicts. . . . In spite of the prosecution of 5600 individuals during the year, the enormous profit to be made by selling cocaine and heroin continues to produce new traffickers, and on an average 60 arrests a week are made in Cairo.” Egypt produces no cocaine or heroin: the whole of the supplies must have been derived from illicit sources. Large quantities of dangerous drugs have recently been exported under “fancy’’ names, which give no indication of their real nature. This is a new danger, which complicates materially the problem of effective control.