As Guarna’s baggage was being taken to a platform to be loaded onto a truck, Cardoza walked over to the telephone booth where Esposito sat.
“That’s a lot of baggage,” Cardoza said. “We’ll have to hire a truck to get it to the office.”
Esposito grinned maliciously. “Why don’t we wait,” he said, “and let Guarna hire his own truck. Then he’ll have to pay the bill.”
“Why not?” Cardoza said.
Porters were preparing to heave the trunks onto a truck at the loading station when Cardoza and Esposito approached Guarna. They identified themselves as Customs agents and asked to see the contents of the trunks.
Guarna said nothing. Perhaps he was too frightened to speak. He merely took several keys from his pocket and began unlocking the trunks. When the agents raised the lids, they saw that each was packed with expensive men’s haberdashery which had not been declared.
Guarna and Battaglia talked readily. They identified the inspectors who had helped them in their smuggling. When agents completed their examination of the partners’ books, they were able to prove that over a period of two and a half years, the two men and their accomplices had smuggled into the United States merchandise with a wholesale value of $147,613—and they had avoided payment of duties totalling some $56,600. They had paid out $6,000 to various inspectors, of which the lion’s share—about $5,000—went to Lev.
Battaglia and Guarna were convicted and fined $10,000 and $5,000 respectively, and placed on five years’ probation. Inspector Lev was fined $2,500 and sentenced to three years in prison, along with Inspector Danis. Six other inspectors were dishonorably discharged from the service.
17
THE INNOCENTS
Betty Warren and Harriet Davis—trim and attractive in their U.S. Army nurses’ uniforms—were wide-eyed with excitement as they looked from the window of the airliner and saw Hong Kong for the first time. The clouds hung low over the peaks of the island jutting from the sea at the edge of Red China. In the harbor they saw great luxury liners at anchor alongside battered old freighters from the four corners of the earth. The harbor was alive with Chinese junks and sampans.