CURRENCY SMUGGLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26437, 16 April 1947, Page 5

CURRENCY SMUGGLING

BLACK MARKET IN FRANCE HOLIDAY MAKERS ALARMED Rec. 7 p.m. LONDON, Apl. 14. A state of near-panic is reported to be spreading through the luxury hotels of the French Riviera as the British Treasury and Scotland Yard develop their investigations into currency smuggling. Holiday-makers cut off from their black market sources of francs are preparing to return home, not knowing whether, when they arrive in Britain, they will join the hundreds already summonsed on currency charges. Exchange control in Britain limits purchases of foreign currency to what is required for essential imports or for sustenance, and in general it prevents the transfer of capital abroad without the consent of the British Treasury. At least 2000 cases of suspected infringements of currency regulations by British subjects abroad are being investigated. Investigations into foreign currency dealings based in London are also in progress, and arrests of big dealers are expected soon. There has already been a number of' heavy fines, and to-day, at Bow Street, the magistrate fined a woman £550 on three summonses alleging that she issued cheques in France contrary to the currency regulations. Two cheques which she cashed were made payable to Max Intrator. Intrator, a currency black marketeer who operated in France, is now in a Paris gaol awaiting trial as the chief of an international currency smuggling ring. The Paris correspondent of the Daily Express says that Intrator’s smuggling ring had a turnover of £ 150.000 a month. The ring obtained English money, in the form of notes smuggled out of Britain or cheques, by purchasing it from British tourists at less than the official exchange rate. The British currency was then sold to Frenchmen anxious to get British currency at far more than the official exchange. The francs thus acquired were then sent through Cairo to London. America, or Switzerland and eventually back to France -at an enormous profit. Currency evasions by Brtish subjects are stated have cost the British Treasury £10,000.000 in the year since the war.