DRUG TRAFFIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19997, 14 January 1927, Page 9

DRUG TRAFFIC

WORLD HEADQUARTERS TRACED. AN ELABORATE ORGANISATION. (Freta Association —By Telegraph—Copyright.' LONDON, January 12. The Daily News Berlin correspondent states that after six months’ search the police have unearthed the headquarters of international cocaine traffickers. The arch gangster is a Russian doctor, Sirkorski, and the accomplices include analytical chemists. They have supplied world centres with cocaine, heroin, opium, and other drugs. The extent of their operations may be judged by a telegram that arrived on the premises when the police were in possession ordering 2421 b for the 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 the tampering wa j unsuspected. The bulk of the trade was done via Copenhagen.—Sydney Sun Cable. ANOTHER ACCOUNT. GANG OF TEN ARRESTED. ENORMOUS PROFITS MADE. BERLIN, January 12. (Received Jan. 13, at 7.55 p.m.) The police have uprooted what is believed to be the general headquarters in Europe of a vast illicit traffic in cocaine, morphine, and other drugs, and a gang of ten, some of whom are of Russian origin, have been arrested. The police have traced the export to Japan and China of enormous quantities of drugs manufactured in Germany. Expert chemists are believed to have co-operated. The drugs were so treated that they appeared in the guise of harmless articles, such as shaving soap, boot polish, and varnish. The traffic yielded enormous profits. The usual price paid by Chinese purchasers is equal to £4 per ounce, of which the original cost is one-sixth of that sum. The drugs were at first shipped via London, but such large quantities were seized that the smugglers latterly despatched the goods through Copenhagen. —A. and N.Z. Cable.