SMUGGLING DOGS

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 8

SMUGGLING DOGS

TRAP FOR THE UNWARY. Heavy fines have recently been inflicted by the Excise authorities on persons in London who have innocently bought greyhounds smuggled into England from the Irish Free State without payment of duty. In several cases owners of racewinning dogs have had to pay as much as £IOO 0 in the shape of treble duty on the value of the dogs. Failure to do so would have been followed by a prosecution.

Although heavy penalties curb the activities of the actual smugglers in Ireland for a time, they soon find a means of resuming their nefarious practice. One smuggler was recently sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in Northern Ireland, and the dogs which he had got as far as London were confiscated. The Excise authorities have a record of all dogs that come from the Irish Free State, and when one whose name is unknown begins to win races an inquiry is at once made.

It is thus that a proud and innocent owner is sometimes called on to pay treble duty, although he may be unaware of the illegal manner in . which the dog has been smuggled i out of the Irish Free State into Nor- j them Ireland and thence to England.