GOLDEN DOPE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19842, 17 May 1927, Page 9

GOLDEN DOPE

“BIG TEN” CAPTURED BRANCHES EVERYWHERE. German detectives, in co-operation with those of other countries, have at last routed out what is believed to be the general headquarters in Europe of a vast illicit traffic, extending to Asia, in cocaine, morphine and other drugs. A gang of ten (“The Big Ten”), many of Russian origin, have been arrested. In the interests of a continued search for conspirators in other countries, names are kept secret. * Japan amd? China have been among the chief markets; and the police have traced the export to these countries of enormous quantities —as much as 1200 ounces at a time—of the drugs (mainly cocaine) manufactured in Germany. Very large profits were made; the usual price paid by the Chinese pur chasers being £l2O per kilo (about £4 per ounce), while the original cost was only one-sixth of this. At first the drugs were shipped via London, but such largo proportions were seized that the smugglers had to abandon this route.

Customs authorities in other British ports were found to be equally keen, and for the last few months the smugglers have sent everything through Copenhagen. Expert chemists are said to have participated in the plot, devising extraordinarily ingenious methods of disguising the real character of the exported goo;dj3. Narcotics and morphia drugs were so treated chemically that they took on the appearance of sue]} harmless articles as “shaving soap,” “boot blacking.” and “varnish.” An organisation believed to have been operating for at least three years, through many foreign agents, has now been laid by the heels at this end of the chain of the “dope operators.” As one authority puts it, >‘The Big Ten,” have been captured.