CLEARING HOUSE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 92, 9 December 1931, Page 2

CLEARING HOUSE

DRUG HOARD* DISCOVERED IN HOUSE AT - MILAN. The Italian police have discovered ah important clearing-house for drugs at Milan, states a report from Rome published in an English newspaper. A doctor and a well known lawyer have been arrested. The doctor kept a chemist's shop, which is said to have been used as a distributing .centre. The shop has been closed, and so have six other chemists' shops in the city. From pap.ers seized in their homes and confessions made hy the rest of the gang, mostly young men and wo- . men of smart appearance, it seems that a consighment of drugs, weighing several kjlogrammes, was brought into Italy from Constantinople by highlyrpaid smugglers, A cook on the Paris train de luxe has been arrested. It is alleged that he carried the drugs in his kitehen, which was not searched hy Customs ofRcers at the various frontiers. A club, called the "Island of Dreams," has also been raided, but the elderly woman who kept it has

escaped. It is in the Monforte residential district, and was the Mecca of fashionable drug addicts. Heroin, hashish, and cocaine were found there in large quantities. These drugs are being examined by police analysts. It appears that the bullc of the narcotics found their way to Paris and the United States. The lawyer has confessed that he organised the business part of the traffie and drew up .contracts with the Constantinople firms which supplied the goods. He said it was profitable, but much of their profits went in hribes and dis- ; tributing expenses.