INGENIOUS SMUGGLING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1938, Page 4

INGENIOUS SMUGGLING

FAMILY FORTUNE IN BALE OF HOPS. NAZI OFFICIALS OUTWITTED. Since the currency laws of Germany have put a ban on people taking or sending large sums of money out of the country, many ingenious methods of smuggling have been tried by refugees and others wishing to set up domicile elsewhere. These attempts usually fail, but occasionally the scrupulous German officials are hoodwinked, and a man’s savings pass beyond the clutch of Nazi law. There was such a case last month, when a young German admitted to the English Customs authorities at Harwich that a bale of hops, exported from Germany, contained the entire fortune of his family. Another instance was that of an English journalist who had been .recalled from Berlin after many years’ service there. “Hanged if I was going to leave my savings behind to rot in a German bank,” he told an interviewer, “so I made some cigarettes with notes packed into the centres and a little tobacco in each end. “At the Customs the officials went through my luggage and personal belongings with a tooth-comb. While they were doing so, I took out my cigarettes, lit one myself and offered the case round. It was refused, and I was told to put mine out. Was I glad! The rest of those cigarettes was worth over a thousand pounds to me.” Bluff, of course, always plays an important part in these efforts to defeat the authorities. • Several Germans have adopted smuggling as a profession, and their methods are astounding. One worked a scheme which was quite succesful for some months. He had a thin metallic case inserted into his thigh, and for about £5O a client could fill the case with notes, have the man’s 'skin sewn over the opening, and send him to England on a stretcher. After a while, however, the authorities become suspicious, and not only did they remove the bandages but also X-rayed the leg. Now there is a German in prison nursing a sore leg and regretting the loss of a most remunerative occupation.