BIG OPIUM HAUL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 26

BIG OPIUM HAUL

FRENCH SMUGGLERS CAUGHT AT SUVA ON OLD RAIDER WOLF t (From Our Own Correspondent) SUVA, June 3. s When police and customs offi- * cers set a guard about the ( steamer Antinous, of the Mes- t sageries, Maritimcs Line, at j Suva last month opium worth £I,OOO was seized and, later, three sailors from the ship were c fined £3OO. t rpilE police and customs officers r combined in a determined effort to suppress opium smuggling- which, is a g curse ou the colony. The Antinous, r formerly the German raider Wolf, after being granted pratique, berthed at King’s Wharf in the usual way. I I But the Comptroller of Customs, Mr. c E. J. March, and the chief of police, Colonel Gamble, had decided on con- . certed action. 1 Three hours after the berthing two members of the crew, Noel Corensin. a Martinique negro, and Andre Bou- i ganville, a Frenchman, prepared to go c ashore. The customs officer ran his i hands over them as they came down i the gangway, and passed them ashore C without hesitation. At Rodwell Road they were stopped e again and taken to the police station. I ! On being searched there a number of I packets of prepared opium were e found tied round the calf of a leg of j each of them. The drug was in flat cakes, and was found to weigh five i pounds. 1 RAID ON SHIP < A short time later, two police officers ( boarded the ship, and a search was . made in the .forecastle and crew’s ‘ galley. Cupboards were searched, and nothing was found in any recess. Attention finally was turned to a pair , of dirty buckets covered with sack- ' ing, and in them was found 211 b of | ' prepared opium. Ahmed Mahommed, the Arab in charge of the galley, was immediately arrested. Later in the day the three men were charged before the acting-chief police magistrate with having prepared opium in their possession. The court room was filled, with heavy, pungent fumes from coarse i grade opium, and the air was almost j overpowering. Mahommed, the Arab, ! was fined £2OO, and the other two men I £SO each, prison terms being fixed as j alternatives. j The method of raising the fine j money was the next problem to be i faced, but eventually a tarpaulin j muster on the ship yielded 37,000 j francs, the sum required, j The opium seized was destroyed some days later in the furnaces of the Suva electric-power house.