The preliminary examination revealed nothing unusual about the car except that it did seem to sag heavily on the rear springs and there was no apparent explanation for the welding near the rear fenders.
Cozzi began rapping on the sides of the car with his knuckles. It seemed solid enough until he rapped on the body just above the rear fenders—and then the rapping gave forth a hollow sound.
“Let’s unbolt one of these fenders and take a look,” Cozzi said.
Three bolts were loosened near the left rear door post. The fender was pried away from the body far enough to reveal a piece of gray cardboard. When Cozzi poked into the cardboard with a screwdriver, he could see it covered a package wrapped in heavy black cloth.
The fender was removed and the searchers found that it concealed a secret compartment containing several parcels—all of them packed with sheets of gold. Two secret compartments yielded eighty-two packages of gold valued at $171,197.
Customs agents were alerted. They kept Chabot’s apartment under surveillance. They were following when he and Mrs. Chabot left the apartment at 9:30 A.M. enroute to Pier 90. The couple boarded the Queen Elizabeth and went to their cabin, D291. And it was there that agents questioned Chabot.
Chabot protested that he knew nothing of any gold hidden in the automobile. He claimed that two weeks earlier a man he knew only as “Carl” had given him $1,900 and told him to go to a used car lot and buy a certain automobile. Chabot said he bought the car for $1,750 and that he turned it over to Carl. Then Carl had brought the car back to him and he had delivered it to the steamship line without any knowledge that the gold had been hidden behind the fenders.
Chabot’s story was not very convincing. He was tried and found guilty on a charge of smuggling and was sentenced to five years in prison.
As for Matthew Jake Berckman, the car checker whose suspicions led to the gold seizure, he was given a reward of $16,119 by the government for his alertness.
* * * * *