Just one example of the workings of the system. An Italian named Costello was an importer of cheese. He was a successful, enterprising and honest merchant. One day he received a large shipment from Italy, upon which he expected to pay a duty of $10,000. The cargo was unloaded and weighed by the customs representatives. That night an emissary of the ring called upon the Italian merchant. He showed the record of weights for the cheese cargo. According to this record Costello would have had to pay a duty of $5,000. It showed but half the weight in cheese that had actually arrived.
"We save you $5,000," said the spokesman. "We expect you to divide the profit."
"But I believe in dealing honestly with the Government," said Costello. "I have always done so and I have prospered."
"My tip to you," said the go-between, "is to do as the weighers suggest. They could as easily have charged you overweight as underweight. Besides, you will save much money."
The importer, a foreigner, thus advised by representatives of the Government of his adoption, took the tip and thereafter profited through this official corruption and shared the duties thus saved. Costello received most of his goods as part of what were known as "Mediterranean cargoes," cheese, macaroni, olive oil. The Government was afterward found to have been losing an average of $20,000 on each Mediterranean cargo that came to port.
The case is typical. The representatives of the Government practically forced the importers into these deceptions. The customs service and commercial New York became permeated with this sort of fraud.
Henry L. Stimson was appointed United States district attorney in 1909 and determined to clean up these customs frauds. William Loeb, Jr., was collector of the port, and of the same mind. The two men got their heads together and considered ways and means. A big cleanup followed and in bringing it about the work of Detective Billy Gard played a most important part.
This young special agent was told to go out and master the detail of New York customs, a service that was new to him, to come to understand them so well that he could place his finger on the points where things were going wrong, to pick out the men in the service who were corrupt, to get his information in such form that it would be admissible in court as evidence and so strong that it would insure convictions. He was to do all this in the face of the unfriendliness of the service he was to study, despite all the stumbling-blocks that would be put in his way, in opposition to the dominant political machine of the port, in the face of a lack of any special knowledge of the service. Young Gard accepted the assignment with a grin.
"What are you doing on the customs cases?" District Attorney Stimson asked three weeks later.