“POOR” HONEST" MEN

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

“POOR” HONEST" MEN

SMUGGLERS OF TO-DAY

(By

0.E.W.)

week Dominion newspapers published particulars of a case in which a cripple travelling on a trans-Atlantic liner was arrested forerunning drugs through the customs in his wooden leg, and several other instances of ingenious concealment of contraband were given to provide the story with a background. Apparently, judging by cases which have come to the notice of the Press during the past two years, the ancient art of smuggling is as prevalent to-day as it was in the times of King George 111., but its improved methods have kept the “poor honest man,” comparatively speaking, out of the eye of the public, and the goods his fraternity handles do not interest the general public nearly to the extent that brandy, tobacco and French silks did one hundred and fifty years ago.

Probably the greatest smuggling adventure in history began when the United States prohibition laws came into operation in 1919—50 great an adventure indeed that the ordinary revenue men could make no' effort to cope with it. Enforcement, or an attempt at enforcement, by means of a special force of prevention, cost the American taxpayer countless millions of dollars before it was realised that the task was impossible.

It is true that an immense traffic in contraband goes on between Europe and the United States to-day, but unfortunately the operations of the up-to-the-minute smuggler are not confined to the trans-Atlantic routes. Even between Australia and the East there are evidences of considerable activity in opium traffic, against which the preventive officer finds it almost impossible to make headway, even if he understands the methods used. Ships trading to Singapore and Hong Kong are known to carry the bulk of cargoes. The method of obtaining entry to the Commonwealth is well-known, but so ingenious in its simplicity as to make direct preventive measures almost impossible. The cargoes come aboard at eastern fuelling ports either with coolie loading gangs or members of the crew and are concealed, usually in kerosene tins in the coal bunkers or amongst the cargo. The dope-runner or his agent travels as either a member of the ship’s crew or as a steerage passenger and, possessing a detailed knowledge of the ship’s run down the Queensland coast, stays up all night on a certain prearranged date until he picks up a flashed ■dgnal from a passing launch or lugger. He then drops his cargo of opium overboard sealed in its kerosene tin container and wired to two or three other tins as floats. Sometimes, to make the launchman's job easier, a small light is fixed to the “buoy” that carries the contraband. The small craft merely cruises about until the buoy is found and .the drug-filled tin is quietly transported into some small harbour and handed over to the distribution end of the smuggling organisation, filtering out in the small, characteristic tins to the Chinese population of the seaboard towns and cities. Much tincture of opium is brought in small lots disguised as Chinese “medicine” and smoked quite openly in Queensland by Chinese cook-boys and laundry men, who tilt the tiny container over a cheap cigarette and then carefully dry the opium impregnated tobacco over the stove or in the sun before having their smoke. A few years ago the problem of a more dangerous drug-traffic in cocaine and heroin had. the Australian police at their wits’ end. The menace to a certain type of city dweller assumed grave proportions. Packages of adulterated cocaine were openly peddled in the streets of Sydney, and so secure was the pedlar in the protection of his gang that strangers were not uncommonly approached and asked if they had tried the stuff—if they would care to. For some time almost desperate endeavours were made to trace the source of supply and the method of getting it into the country. Although numerous arrests were made and thousands of pounds worth of dangerous drugs seized, little or no inroad was made to the roots of the trouble. Realising themselves up against an almost hopeless proposition the police then concentrated against the distributors with the aid of a sweeping piece of legislation known, as the Consorting Act, which gave the authorities power to arrest and imprison persons consorting with known criminals. From the first day of its operation the “gangs” which hedged the lucrative dope trade about were doomed, and to-day Sydney and Melbourne are probably as free from the _ drug menace as any cities of their size in the world. Drugs can be brought into the country, but they cannot be sold without the sellers running the gravest risk. A somewhat similar state of affairs exists in England and on the Continent of Europe. Owing to the activities of international police and the League of Nations the drug traffic is definitely on the downward path. Drugs, however, are by no means the sole profitable line handled by the smuggler of to-day. Extensive business is still done in eastern silk, gold, tobacco and jewellery. Practically every ship homebound from the east is suspect by the Customs, and bolts of valuable silk are found in all sorts of unlikely places—sewn in crated mattresses and other cotton goods from Japan, hales of raw cotton and Chinese goat hides— anywhere and everywhere human’ingenuity in concealment can devise. There has always been a difficulty preventing the export of gold. Chinese are inveterate hoarders of gold and gold coins and will usually pay slightly more than the market price, eventually taking their hoard back to China with them. Some years ago a Chinese was arrested at Sydney on board ship and 1200 gold sovereigns were found concealed in•th® hollow rail of a companionway ladder. He had laboriously transported them aboard in hollow boot heels! ; Illicit diamond buyers in South Africa have to transport their wares to the great gem markets of Paris and Amsterdam. Uncut diamonds disguised as sealing wax beads and worn by an attractive woman passenger have been discovered on Union Castle liners. Stones have been found concealed in boxes of face powder, cigars on which duty is paid, dummy cigarettes, and even concealed in a deep wound in the thigh of a half-caste stoker. _ ■ ’ The smuggling of set jewellery from Europe to the New World is also a well established trade, and the devices of concealment would tax the ingenuity of the most suspicious Customs official born. The only way in which the modem smuggler can be fought is at the source and the outlet of his trade, by indirect methods, patience and good policing. When an arrest is made on shipboard it is seldom outright the result of vigilance on the part of an examining officer. Suspect passengers are “tabbed”—and once tabbed, even X-rays have been brought out as a trump card in the game of discovering where he has concealed his merchandise. '