TRADE IN DRUGS

Southland Times, Issue 19124, 17 December 1923, Page 6

TRADE IN DRUGS

TRAFFICKER SENTENCED. HUGE QUANTITIES EXPORTED TO JAPAN. (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, December 13. Described by counsel as “the largest trafficker in drugs ever brought to justice, Yasukichi Miyagawa, a merchant, was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude at the Old Bailey on a charge of procuring £5OO worth of morphine and hydrochloride to be sent to Japan, and also of possessing a quantity of drugs. * The prosecution alleged that Miyagawa was engaged in smuggling huge quantities of morphine into Japan. A consignment of morphine and hydrochloride, valued at £9OOO, had been seized by the police at Marseilles. The Home Office knew that huge consignments of drugs had been smuggled into Japan in recent years and that some had found its way to China, India and other parts of the world. Miyagawa trafficked enormously in drugs in Switzerland and Hamburg, from which port he exported £37,590 worth of heroin in the last week of October. He was backed by powerful and wealthy organisations. Representations had been made to Germany and many arrests had been made in Hamburg during the last few days.