SECRET DRUG KINGS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 January 1931, Page 4

SECRET DRUG KINGS

TRAITORS DOOMED TORTURE AND DEATH HUGE FACTORIES Behind the startling announcement recently made by the French Customs authorities at Marseilles that they have ill four months—June to September—seized 27e\vt. of smuggled drugs from incoming and outgoing ships, compared with roughly 6cwt during 1929, lies a thrilling romance of a ceaseless struggle against one of the greatest curses of our time, says the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Express.” This revelation docs not only mean that the “dope” traflic is as great as ever, hut also that the French authorities are lighting it with every means in their power. MYSTERIOUS JAPANESE In the face of forces and combinations against them, it is extraordinary that they succeed as well as they do, for there is almost unbelievable power behind the distributing combines, both financially and in respect of their facilities for “graft.” From Central Europe, which is the centre of chemically prepared “dope,” to Turkey, which allows the manufacture of opium in Stamboul quite openly, there is a continuous supply of cyery kind of drug destined for the four corners of the earth.

Two mysterious Japanese have an enormous factory in Turkey, and the concession has been given for the manufacture of opium near Scupari, in Albania, to a French association with a nominal capital of £96.000. There is another “dope king,” a Greek, whose power is even more feared and who owns his private steamers and powerful cars to smuggle contraband. Under his control are hundreds, of men —travellers, ships’ crews, receivers, even insurance brokers —but not one has ever seen his chief. He has become a figure of legend. No one has ever knowingly set eyes upon him, for he makes all his communications by telegraph, telephone or letter. Owing to the mystery of his identity he possesses more power than anyone else, and even death will not reveal his name. His huge business will not cease.

This will give a slight notion of the difficulties which beset the French Customs authorities of Marseilles in their unequal fight (for “squealing,” or the giving away of information by agents is punishable by death or torture by the dope ringleaders), and the story of their work sounds like the description of a purgatory on earth. Imagine if you can the agony of having for eight hours to creep through the dark and fetid ventilation shaft of a great liner by means of elbows and knees in order to reach a riveted plate in the side, behind which the presence of hidden contraband is suspected. Yet such was the experience of one searcher last June. HIDING PLACES He found that tho rivets had been taken out and dope placed behind tho steel plate. This was replaced, and the rivets artificially rusted again and covered with soot. It was only unusual heat, which caused the dope to give forth a slight odour, that afforded the clue to this hiding-place, and was responsible for . a haul of almost two hundredweight of opium. On another occasion four men worked for hours on end, assuming acrobatic positions within a few inches of _ the scorching steam-pipes Vi'iea'fc the boilers of an engine-room, in order to find another quantity of opium and heroin. Often the drug is hidden _ beneath hundreds of tons of coal in a ship’s hold. It is then usually contained in damp jute bags. Once in a liner coming from the East Customs men had to dig for fifteen horn's into 800 tons of coal before they reached the bags of opium. And so one could continue endlessly. The searcher has to possess the faculties cf a genius allied to the bodily gifts of an acrobat to outwit this mass of smuggling. Yet when all this work is done there may still be many hundreds of pounds of drugs hidden in the ship or even beneath it, for if there is any suggestion that the Customs have •any wind of a consignment, the drug is probably placed in hermetically sealed and weighted bags and dropped over the side. An almost invisible buoy is attached and then fast motor-boats, which relay each other every six hours,_ and arc supplied with powerful searchlights, dash up in the night and tow the precious burden away to a place of safety. Not the least of tho difficulties encountered by the Customs authorities in their efforts to put down this trade, is tliat a large section of tho community in great ports such as Toulon or Marseilles at least shuts its eyes to the traffic, if it does not actually, help. Few opium dens now remain, but the evil is, if anything, greater, for the drug is consumed in private houses, which are far mflro difficult to locate. The most respectable bourgeois families are often found to be addicts, but it is generally bv accident that they are. discovered. The trouble to which private individuals will go to obtain tho drug is remarkable, and the precautions taken by suppliers of whatever ’grade are even more so. ... , ■, Sachets of heroin have been iound beneath the tiny feet of a baby apparently being harmlessly taken out for an airing by a fond mother. A man ys H sell you a bag of peanuts with a little packet of heroin at the bottom; the only difference is that you pay more for the peanuts. Children sometimes deliver, a consignment of drug in Marseilles hidden in a hoop, which they playfully bowl along in the streets. It is extraordinary, then, that despite the ceaseless efforts of the authorities, tho drug traffic, unbelievably profitable as it is, continues to thrive? The French authorities are not content, however, with their efforts. They are contemplating the foundation of a school which shall be wholly devoted to the training of Customs men specialised in the detection of the drug traffic.