SMASHING TIE DRUG “RING”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 382, 16 June 1928, Page 26

SMASHING TIE DRUG “RING”

SMUGGLING OF NARCOTICS MORE PREVALENT THAN EVER . . . WITS OF POLICE WORLD WORK OVERTIME TO CHECK DEADLY TRAFFIC

Sinister in outline, craftily concealed under the cloak of anonymity, working in the dark with “the unseen hand,” a huge international drug syndicate is extending its tentacles over the entire civilised world—intent upon the illicit distribution of narcotics and the enmeshing of new victims. Few people know- but many have heard of “The Opium Ring.” Of the individuals who compose this mysterious body mauy weird stories are told, but they are largely the efforts of the imagination. The most amazing sucess of the opium ring is that all these years it has managed to keep the identity of its members a dead secret. Some claim that the world-wide syndicate for the dispensing of illicit drugs is in the hands of the Chinese; but, judging by the completeness of the methods used, its managers are a cosmopolitan crowd. Although its very name is a secret, it is represented in every large town, its organisation is at work in evei-y border and coast city, and its operators are found everywhere. Its business is unlawful in almost every civilised country on earth, but in defiance of armed ships and officers, police squads and individuals, it continues its nefarious activities. Opium is only a part of its stock in trade. It —the ring—dispenses drugs of many kinds, opium, cocaine and morphine coming first.

If the foregoing statements sound wild and fantastic in this day of wireless, television, unseen rays of light, psycho-analysis, world-wide airplane flights and detectives that must operate in almost four dimensions, the facts were questioned in the presence

of an American opium detective who was a university graduate and a gentleman of quiet speech and manners.

“It’s not. the name of the syndicate combine.” the opium detective began after the long pause in which he had evidently weighed his comment. "It isn’t the name we care about so much: it is some key or sure way of knowing how to catch its agents. There are as many different ways, apparently, for its agents to operate in defiance of the law as there are people in the world. At times the task appears hopeless.

“First, there is the reward to the agent for working for ‘the ring.’ This is in itself no mean amount. For example, an ounce of cocaine can be bought in Italy for £l. In the United States it can be sold wholesale for ten times that amount, and if retailed (t can be sold for as high as 16s a. grain. There are 480 grains in an ounce. So you see, there are stupendous profits. A ‘tin’ is worth in China from £1 to £2. In San Francisco or New York it will bring from £2O to £4O wholesale!

“Drugs are brought into the country in every conceivable form and way. They come in, the soles and heels of shoes, in bottles, in suitcases, in parcel post packages, in umbrella handles, in office appliances, in embossed postcards, in secret folds and pockets of men’s and women’s clothes. “Once one of our officers searched a suspect in a hotel. He went over the room and the man carefully, and found nothing. Happening to pick up the Bible lying on the hotel table, he absent-mindedly put his finger between the leaves, and found that the centre had been cut out. Inside there was a supply of drugs, together with a set of instruments for administering them.”

“For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain,” a second Federal officer —call him Thomas —put in, “you should hand it to the Orientals. They are melodramatic adepts in the art. of smuggling. Why, I remember a time when I was over ‘investigating’ in the Far East, not so very long ago. A rather amusing incident occurred at Amoy. A merchant of that city was importing some flowered silk from Canton by the way of Hong Kong, and in one of his shipments, to his great surprise, inside a couple of dozeun of the bolts of silk he found, long, flattened cylinders of opium tins, with

just enough silk to cover then tv was several thousand doll.**-' r “ r « of drugs, even at the price * Wo «i> there in China. Evidently had in some manner arisen smugglers as to the bolts lh « the drugs, and the wron- ° mai ®in* gone to this merchant.' nes ha d “But that was really nothin* . smuggling machine that »,“* t 0 up on a couple of Chinese that ran down to Saigon anrt'ri rash!ps A public-spirited- CWnese ® a " made the steamship company to mstal clocks in the 5a100n., 511 °® er ing rooms, and even in the™ ..’J 1 "*- lf in return he was allowed tisement for his firm, who were**"" and sugar importers. This nce ment was to be on the dials.&HT the steamship company stood w not I never knew, but at a n r ra “ » offer was accepted. The 'adv.Ll? ment seemed to he sufficient ».5 t ' Se " for the clocks, and everything S all right. Although the large-even those in the stateroom" were big enough for hotel office ® s one thought a great deal about it " appeared to be merely a mixtnw £ Oriental and Western tastes It LT became evident that the advertUm? paid, even in China, for not a vear passed before Hop Ling hGilt him self a new house, and doubled the Z of his go-downs in Bangkok. He ah, established branches in Sineaporeand Manila. It was his connection w»k America that interested us La,", he started a knitting factory, then j rubber plantation, and equipped Thom all with modern machinery i n t J" Philippines he opened a bank. * “But alas! one day a coolie stagger ing under a package labelled ‘lacquer placques’ stumbled on the steps, and sent half a dozen opium tins roßiag down the dock. “We found that each of the 50 or more advertising clocks was mode with a neat little compartment in the hack, just large enough to hold a IMb tin of opium. In our careful search of hidden places in the wall, we had never stopped to examine the clocks or to notice that they were three quarters of an inch thicker than the,should have been. The clocks were of common German make, but the Chinese had very cleverly added the compartments—so cleverly, in fact, that it was possible to see where It was done only after careful scrutiny. The clocks remained on the ship for some time afterwards, but they did not help to augment Hop Ling’s fortune. Later they were presented to an American denominational mission by Hop Lins himself.”

The ring arranges that its emissaries shall never meet. One whom these officers had caught admitted that he had been carrying drugs for several years, but that after the first veiled negotiations he never knew and never was able to learn with whom or for whom he was working. He was credited with landing thousands of pounds of opium in the United States, but he was equally positive tha* he did not have the slightest idea of whom and what were the men who got it. The opium was to be obtain’d at certain places and delivered at others, and as long as this was done the money was paid, this likewise being delivered sceretly. Sometimes it was sent in a letter, but generally it was “found” in his hotel room. But the ring “gets’* its agents. They dare not be disloyal. They do not last long. If not caught by Federal officers, they sample the drug themselves, and this as truly means destruction as though some secret shot felled them while working at their nefarious business.