CHAPTER IV.
Some Anecdotes of Smugglers and Smuggling.
As an inducement to seize contraband, Government pays its preventive staff money-rewards which bear a ratio to the value of the stuff seized, and the ability displayed in seizing it; and an officer who is active and conscientious very often can earn in this way from three to four times the amount of his monthly salary. But the seizing of contraband is by no means easy, as the smuggler has brought concealment to a fine art, and there seems to be no end to the ingenuity which may be exercised by him in getting his consignments through safely to their destination. A few examples will serve to demonstrate this.
Vigorous search had failed to bring to light the cocaine which was reported to be on board the S.S. “Contrebandier” from Marseilles, and the search party were about to reluctantly abandon their quest when attention was directed to a pile of bundles of planks, each bundle consisting of from four to six half-inch planks, bound together at each end with iron bands. More from curiosity than with any idea of discovering cocaine, one of these bundles was pulled apart. The top plank was found to be intact, and so was the bottom one, but the intervening planks had had spaces cut through them which were packed with one-ounce packets of cocaine. A large quantity of the alkaloid, valued at several thousands of rupees, was found. An illustration to make the method clear is shown.
Top plank removed.
Bundle of planks.
Another example: The weekly steamer from India had come into a Burma port, and the deck-passengers had been lined up on the pier for inspection by the Customs officers. An excise officer on the pier was made curious by four natives of India, whose only effects consisted of earthen pots of water containing small fishes. Knowing that the place to which these men had come abounded with fish of the best kinds, he was not convinced when they explained that they had brought these small fry to stock the local tanks with. A closer scrutiny disclosed the fact that whereas by percolation the outsides of the pots ought to have been wet, these were quite dry. Measurements taken with his walking stick inside a pot and outside it disagreed too greatly to leave any doubt of the existence of a false bottom, and on breaking a pot, he found that it not only had a false bottom, but that the inter-space was packed with segments of opium. The remaining pots, needless to say, were treated in the same way, and a rich haul was made. An illustration of this method, also, is given. Considering there was no seam, the workmanship of these pots was uncommonly clever.
