SMUGGLING EPIDEMIC IN AMERICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8873, 6 November 1907, Page 3

SMUGGLING EPIDEMIC IN AMERICA.

MANY ARRESTS BY CUSTOMS OFFICIALS. The Customs authorities in New York claim to have discovered a smuggling conspiracy which involves dressmakers and milliners in all parts of the United States. Thousands of pounds' worth of lace, jewellery,, and other dutiable articles are said to have been smuggled through the Customs there this summer. Incoming liners have been watched closely during the past weeks, says the London Daily Express of September 16th, and quantities of undeclared lace, jewellery, and costly Parisian dresses discovered in luggage belonging to women passengers. The climax came with the arrest of a* woman, evidently fashionable and wealthy, who was detained when she disembarked from the French liner La Provence. She claimed to be an American by birth, but said that she had resided in France for a long time, and that she was consequently entitled to bring in unlimited quantities of new clothing duty free. The Customs authorities, who refuse to give her name, suspected that she was a professional "carrier" for dressmakers, and, after informing her of her detention, sent her luggage to the Customs depat to undergo further examination. The luggage contains more than £2,000 worth of gowns, embroideries, etc. Many female smugglers have been trapped during the past fortnight, most of them bein;* dressmakers, milliners, or their "carriers." The latter are either paid agents of millinery firms, or ordinary steamship passengers who are induced to declare as their own trunks belonging to dressmakers, and thus pttempt to get them through the Customs duty free. One man arrested recently had £2OO worth ot lace wound round his body. Among the women arrested for smuggling have been several who declared two or three trunks each, but concealed their most valuable pur-,-chases in unmarked trunks, which -«4?Sey bribed porters to remove from the do"k during the confusion of disembarkation. There have even been instances of women who stole Customs "release" ■ labels, and affixed them to unexamined trunks, which immediately removed from the dock without question.