VAST DRUG RING

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20465, 4 April 1938, Page 3

VAST DRUG RING

ARREST IN PARIS WORLD-WIDE OPERATIONS (Times Air Mail Service . LONDON, March 9. Eight persons have been arrested by the Paris police following revelations about the activities of a “drug ring ” operating on the Continent and in the United States, says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. The leader of the gang is alleged to be a Swede named Astrand. He is a barman by profession, working during the day-time at a well-known bar in the fashionable Champs Elysees district, and at night at a Bohemian resort at Montparnasse. He is now in custody. The arrests followed a complaint to the New* York police. The widow of an American judge discovered two months ago that her daughter, who had been a student in the Latin quarter, was being supplied with heroin from Paris, after her return to the L’nited States. She insisted that the police should make efforts to trace the source of the supplies. The French police state that the girl had been undergoing a drug cure while in France. Astrand is alleged to have established connections in Havre through whom he was able to keep in touch w’ith American clients. According to the police he was being supplied by a 28-year-old Corsican named Susini, who was arrested a week ago with a man named Liegeard. Of the other five men arrested three were Corsicans and two Frenchmen. One, Corticchiato by name, was known to his associates as “ Napoleon." Independent of these arrests the investigations have led to the charging of 14 persons with offences against the French drug law’s.