FRAUD ON THE CUSTOMS AT BELFAST.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 544, 20 January 1858, Page 3

FRAUD ON THE CUSTOMS AT BELFAST.

The. mercantile .portion of the. town of) Belfast has been .thrown into a state of• .great, consternation .at the discovery ofalarming and extensive frauds committed ■ on her Majesty's Customs, and also onj parties .having tea deposited oh trust. On[ 'Tl^reday morning, Mr. Godfrey, the lan-j I, ding .surveyor, and Mr. Brown, landing! . waiter, on information they had received] that all was not right, proceeded from the! Custom-house to Stack F. in Skipper! Street, belonging to Messrs. Moore and1 Co., where about 2,000 chests of tea were under bond, and immediately commenced an examination of the papkages. It was .soon discovered,that frauds of the most extensive description had been, perpetrated. The ihvestigation'continued till a lata hour ih■ the evening," and was resumed yesterday morning, when the result showed that upwards of 780 packages of tea; had been tampered with. The '.mode of; proceeding adopted was one l^keljto disarm suspicion, at least, fpra.tirae. I?or some time past it was remarked, in town that Mr. John James Moore, who, wo understand, is at, present the'sole partner of the firm that

bears his name, displayed, it is said, an inclination to become the possessor of a remarkably large number of empty tea chests, and the way in which these appear tp have been used was subsequently made apparent.

The Customhouse officers discovered on the premises a place in which the empty tea chests were brought, and filled with rubbish; such, as turf, mould, bricks, stones, &c. The fraudulently made-up packages appear then to have been brought into the store, the genuine packages strapped of their covers, and others substituted. .The chests!of tea were then carried away and disposed of, while the <f dummies" were left in their places to deceive the eye. .The larger portion of the teas fraudulently abstracted appear to have belonged to Mr. Moore himself: but some teas belonging to .other merchants have been tampered with, though not to any considerable extent. -The Customs will suffer in the first instance by the evasion of the payment of duty on the article, which, on an ordinary chest of tea, amounted to about £6. However, we understand that many of the packages abstracted were small, and that the total loss to the Customs amounts to £4,000 at least; but, as the warehouse was under a general bond, signed by two respectable merchants in town, for the sum of £3,000, and as, we regret to say, they are jointly liable for that sum, the loss to the Customs will be very trivial, as, in addition to the security, they have placed under seizure, all the goods belonging to Mr. Moore, or bonded in his name.

The merchants of Belfast are, fortunately, enabled to repudiate the present delinquent, Mr. John J. Moore. He is comparatively a young man, arid was for several years connected with the tea trade in Glasgow, London, and Liverpool. He came to Belfast as traveller or .representative of a Liverpool or London tea firm, and settled here as a tea merchant two or three years ago; and in so far as any mercantile society can- be madei chargeable with his crime, Belfast, at least, can plead "Not Guilty."