SMUGGLING RIFE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1943, Page 4

SMUGGLING RIFE

ON THE FRANCO-BELGIAN BORDER Lille and the Franco-Belgian frontier were quiet spots in the old days, with factory chimneys, slag heaps, and a •countryside familiar to many English visitors, says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.”) A little smuggling was done by a few individuals, who took great risks for small profits. Today half the population are professional smugglers. Tobacco and matches, Government monopolies in France, are costly and rare. The cigarette ration is two per day. Tobacco is brought across by the Belgians, often by trained dogs, and is sold for the equivalent of 80s a pound in Lille. Rhubarb leaves fetch 10s and “leaves” 4s a pound. Much of the Belgian tobacco has changed into finely chopped grass by the time it reaches Paris, where it is sold for £8 per pound. Before the war these highly trained smugglers’-

dogs fought pitched battles with the. ■ dogs belonging to the Customs officials, but the latter have no dogs today—they are unable to feed them. ■ Money is plentiful, and poorly dressed men may be seen in the estaminets drinking those French aperitifs which may no longer be either manu- . factored or sold, for which they pay 7s a glass. In the other direction butter, flour, bacon, and cloth find their way on to the Belgian black market. The official exchange is 100 Belgian francs for 160 French francs, but the smugglers have fixed their rate at two French francs for one Belgian. The frontier has been closed by the Germans since May 1, but this makes little difference. The crowds of Belgian workers who cross every day to work in the. French factories, as they did before the war, . are searched rapidly by the Customs j officials. The petty smugglers walk . across the fields by day and make £ 4 or £5 each time. They carry cigar-[-ette papers, bought in France for one I i franc, sold in Belgium for six, and re- . sold in Holland for fifteen. At night ' the professionals take across butter,; i wheat, or bacon, on which they make ' 400 to 600 per cent profit. In the re- j gion of Lille, Dunkirk, and Valenciehnes about 20,000 smugglers are ( caught each year. But they cannot be * sent to prison for the good reason that all the prisons are full. Their goods £ are seized and they pay a fine, in ac- r cordance with a law dated August 6, e 1816. As the fine is based only on the cost of the goods, the smuggler laughs, r pays, and returns to work.