DUPED THE CUSTOMS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 567, 24 September 1932, Page 22 (Supplement)

DUPED THE CUSTOMS.

WOMAN’S CLEVER RUSE. DIAMONDS IN GLASS EYE. FRONTIER SMUGGLERS BUSY. Never have smugglers been 60 busy on the Belgian frontiers as they are now. Day and night contraband is being carried in and out of Belgium, Germany, France and Holland. Only the other week 300 smugglers were engaged in a pitched battle with frontier guards near Aix-la-Chapelle. Belgium recently reinforced her frontier Customs posts and connected them by cyclist gendarme patrols, while German precautions were also intensified, but the evil goes on, the smugglers inventing one smart device after another to outwit the officials. Tobacco, cigars and cigarettes are considerably, cheaper in Belgium than in Germany or France, and when smuggled across the frontier yield splendid .profits. Occasionally a light motor van will rush the frontier ixosts with a load, and for a time touring ears with their upholstery stuffed with tobacco cheated Customs officers. When this trick became too well known, spare tyres were filled with the contraband. Night Gallopers. Not long ago a Customs officer was awakened in the dead of night by the sound of galloping horses, and reported the matter to headquarters. It was found that smugglers were loading horses with contraband and, striking them a heavy blow on the haunches with a stick, sending them galloping riderless across the frontier, where they were caught by confederates. Jewellery and precious stones are also among the illicit “exports” from Belgium. A smartly dressed woman journeyed across the Belgian frontier so frequently by the same route that she fell under suspicion. Her passport was in perfectorder and, although she was singled out for search many times, nothing was ever found to prove that she was engaged in anything other than legitimate business. One day, however, an anonymous letter drew the authorities’ attention to the fact that she had a glass eye. It was found that this was an ingeniously contrived receptacle for diamonds. To-day even children are being taught to crawl across the frontier witli smuggled goods. During the first three months of this year German Customs officials seized from smugglers 2.000,000 cigarettes,

over 40 tons of coffee, 35 tons of cereals, and 30 tons of flour. Smuggled into Belgium are drugs, particularly cocaine and morphine, and liqueurs and spirits. A great proportion of the latter come by sea in strings of containers, which float a foot or two beneath the surface of the water and are towed by innocent-looking motor boats or fishing' smacks. Drugs are smuggled in a thousand different ways. An aged Belgian peasant who drove daily a donkey cart to a German village to dispose of vegetables, was always offered a drink in the local estaminet by a man with whom he had no business at all. Returning to his own village he was invariably invited to take a drink by another party. Nobody was more surprised than lie when he learned from the police that, while he was drinking, drugs had been concealed in and taken from his cart.