“DOPE” TRADERS

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1931, Page 8

“DOPE” TRADERS

WORLD-WIDE GANG. LONDON, August 19. Detectives, tracking down a drug trafficker in a London boarding-house, have discovered documents which contained the secrets of a world-wide gang of “dope” traders, and which have led to the suppression of the gang in Germany, France and Japan. Details of ,tLis dramatic coup make the sober pages of the Home Office report on dangerous drugs to the League of Nations for 1930, issued last night, read like an episode from the most daring “thriller.” First word of the trafficker came from Holland, where the officials warned the Home Office that a Japanese, Katsutoshi Tsunemitsu, had been found to be responsible for a shipment of two hundredweights of heroin smuggled front Constantinople to Hamiburg, but seized at Rotterdam. He had fled from Hamburg to London. British poFce acted swiftly. They traced Tsunemitsu on every stage of his flight through England. They followed him to London. They found him in a boarding-house in a northern suburb. TRUNKS SEARCHED. Next, a warrant was issued under the Dangerous Drugs Act, and the Japanese' was surprised in his rooms. His papers were searched, and also two trunks which were stored with another Japanese in the West Itmd. Then came the surprise. A close examination of the documents found showed that Tsunemitsu was the’’- agent of a wealthy gang of Japanese drug traffickers, for whom tic smuggled “dope” in vast quantities from Constantinople to Hamburg.

The secret documents gave the names and addresses of many illicit dealers, chiefly in Turkey, France and Japan. They were rushed to the authorit es ol the different countries, and the investigations led to the end ot the activities of the notorious dealers. CONVERSION. The case was also importrant from another aspect. It established the fact that tlie derivative of morphine, benzyimorphine—suppled under the trade name peronin—which had hitherto been considered to be innocuous, was being used by traffickers for coil version into a dangerous drug. There was a fitting curtain to tlv drama. As there was no evidence that Tsunemitsu had engaged in illicit transactions in the United Kingdom, he was not detained. He immediately disappeared, using a passport in another name fraudulently obtained from the Japanese Consul-General in London!