AMERICAN CUSTOMS SPIES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18617, 12 July 1930, Page 4

AMERICAN CUSTOMS SPIES.

METHODS RESENTED. Several Paris papers protested recently against the methods adopted by the American Customs authorities in order to gather information about purchases made in Paris by American subjects. The protest was occasioned by the announcement of the well-known dress-making house of Paul Poiret that they intend to bring an action for theft against an unknown person who obtained possession of their private account books, photographed certain pages of them, and then replaced them.

The fact that certain American papers have not hesitated to announce that a sum of 50,000d01. was paid to an employee of Poiret. who abstracted these pages, has naturally not contributed to diminish French indignation at these proceedings.

The account in question was that of a Mrs Dodge, who bought a quantity of dresses from Poiret. These dresses were delivered to her Paris address and were paid for by her in Paris. When Mrs Dodge reached New York and declared the value of her purheases, she was fined a very large sum for having made a false declaration, and photographs of her account in the books of the Poiret firm were shown to her in support of the charge. She naturally accused Poiret of having revealed the information. These photographs, however, covered only the period up to the end of last year, and it is now stated by the Director Poiret that he received a visit from an American Treasury official who—no doubt realising that it would be useless to try secretly to photograph further sheets —invited him to communicate details of the account of Mrs Dodge since the beginning of the year. This he refused to do and, according to the "Quotidien” the artistic director of his firm, who was preparing to open in New York an exhibition of models, suddenly found that this exhibition was forbidden by the authorities without any reason, although all necessary Consular formalities had been observed in importing the models into America. The "Quotidieu” adds that the campaign in the French Press against the presence in Paris of representatives of the American Customs service led sometime ago to their removal. They returned in November of last year, but it was understood that they would only address their inquiries to exporting houses, which in itself, says the "Quotidien,” is more than is done in France by the Customs of any other country. It demands that French traders shall not suffer retaliation for refusing to assist the conviction of customers who, whatever their offences against the laws of their own country, had broken no law in France.