DRUG SMUGGLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21647, 18 May 1932, Page 9

DRUG SMUGGLING

AIRMEN LIFT CARGO SHIP SEIZED BY CHINESE, ■ LONDON, May 5. An amazing story of drug smuggling on an extensive scale was told to the League of Nations Opium Committee by Mr Fuller, of the American Consular Service, says the Geneva correspondent of the Daily Mail. It was stated that a steamer named the Marabao, flying the Panama flag, suddenly appeared off the Californian coast, near the Mexican border. The United States authorities had been on the look-out for the vessel, but at the part of the coast where she was sighted there were few telephones or telegraph stations. Before the authorities could act seaplanes swooped down on the steamer and took off a cargo of drugs, including opium, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. A naval cutter chased the ship, but she disappeared in a fog. A few weeks later she appeared in the Canton River, where she was seized by the Chinese authorities. The vessel was equipped with the latest Diesel engines and had been specially built for the transpacific drug traffic. A powerful wireless enabled her to keep in contact with the members of a drug gang through secret stations in 'the United States.. The captain was a Dutchman, the first mate an Austrian, the second mate an American, the chef English and the steward a German. The rest of the_ crew included a dozen men of other nationalities. ' . With a fine sense of poetic justice, the Chinese are now employing the ship in suppressing the drug traffic.