DRUG SMUGGLERS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18899, 14 January 1927, Page 9

DRUG SMUGGLERS.

GANG CAUGHT IN BERLIN. (Bt CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (AUSTRALIAN AKD N.Z. t'ABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, January 12. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily News" states that after sis months' search the police have unearthed the headquarters of international cocaine traffickers. The leader of the gang is a Russian, Dr. Sit'fcnrski, and his accomplices in- 1 elude analytical chemists. They supplied world centres with cocaine, heroin, opium, and other drugs. The extent of their operations maj 'vj judged by a telegram th>*t arrived on the premises when the police were in possession, ordering 242 pounds fof ♦lie- United States. A Woman accomplice, employed by a forwarding firm, secured parcels after they had passed the Customs' examination and substituted drugs for the contents so skilfully that tampering w&s hot suspected. The bulk of the trade was done via CGpenhngen.

HUGE PROFITS MADE. UUSTBALIAN AKD Ji.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received January 13th, 7.55 p.m,) BERLIN, January 12. The police have uprooted what is be*lieved to be the general headquarters in Europe of a vast illicit traffic iii cocaine, morphine, and other drugs. A gang or ten, some of whom are of Russion origin, were arrested. The police traced the export to Japan and China of enormous quantities of drugs manufactured in Germany. Expert chemists are believed to have co-operated in the work. The drugs were so treated that they appeared in the guise of harmle6s_ articles such as shaving soap, boot polish, and varnish. The traffic yielded enormous profits, the usual price paid by Chinese purchasers being equal to £4 an of which the 6righml cost was one-isixth of that sum. The drugs were nt first shipped via London, but such large quantities were seized that the stnu.Kglers have latterly dispatched the goods through Copenhagen.