DRUG SMUGGLING

Southland Times, Issue 21822, 27 September 1932, Page 6

DRUG SMUGGLING

MYSTERIOUS LONDON “CIRCLE.”

London, September 17. A new and secretly organized drug traffic organization has been created in England, with a mysterious inner circle whose agents are principally sailors, says the Daily Mail. London is its centre owing to the ease of smuggling drugs in the Thames. The gang is cleverly organized and completely eclipses the rudimentary methods of the late notorious “Brilliant” Chang and his Chinatown gang, when Poplar was the centre of the East End drug traffic.

Two Chelsea girls repeatedly smuggle French silk into Putney after crossing the Channel by motor boat. It would be still easier to smuggle cocaine. The only way to combat the menace is more and faster Customs launches in the Thames estuary.

PARIS LEADER CAUGHT.

Paris, September 17.

Desire Hartert, alias Riton, aged 25, the Belgian ringleader of the French drug traffic, was caught red-handed as he was leaving a taxicab with 12 packets of cocaine. He had evaded the police for two years because he shunned women and alcohol. He operated six fast motor cars and had a large ttaff of assistants who distributed the drugs to addicts haunting Montmartre and Montparnasse.