OPIUM SMUGGLING

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1933, Page 6

OPIUM SMUGGLING

GREASERS ON AO RANG I

CONVICTIONS. AT SUVA

SUVA, February 11

Two gre-jsers employed on the steamer A Q V ail 4ai have discovered to their cost that smuggling opiunr ashore a t Suva gnj disposing it to the Chinese js ;» matter of risk. Also, that escape from fleet-footed Fijian con stables by. running is out of the question in a tropical climate. Acting on infornigtion. received, a party of police under Inspector Kermode proceeded tp a shop IP Renwick Road, wh,erp tiie two men were found. Immediately upon seeing the PPliP 0 they ran put through the hack of file shop and nttenipted to nrakp their eseivpe. Ope man was cgught and pplled down as he attempted to cliinb an iron fence, but the other man managed to get oyer. However, a sharp but brief chase over several backyards ended in him being captured in. an exhausted, condition on the hanks of creek, where lip had wain himself to a standstill. When the men were arrested a number of the crew threatened that they, would not take the vessel to sea unless the two men accompanied it. In order pot to delay the liner the local office of the Union' .Steam Ship Company deposited the sum of £SO with the police, and after some delay the Aorangi sailed at half-past eight last evening. This’ morning the men, Jack Meufing and John Brown, were charged ex parte at, the Police Court-and were finec) £25 each. Although the police merely stated that they acted from “information received” it is understod that good sources of information rr<\ available to them in the native, Indian and Chinese quarter, where the inexperienced trafficer in opium may lie betrayed by others engaged in the traffic, who may .desire to protect their own particular field of trade.