COCAINE GANG

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10305, 14 January 1927, Page 5

COCAINE GANG

HEADQUARTERS UNEARTHED WORLD’S CENTRES" SUPPLIED. CLEVER ROGUES TAMPER WITH CUSTOMS PARCELS (United Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, Jan. 12. The Daily News’ Berlin correspondent states that after six months’ search the police have unearthed the headquarters of international cocaine traffickers. The arch-gangster is a Russian doctor, Sirkorski, and the accomplices include analytical chemists. They supplied the world’s centres with cocaine, heroin, opium, and other drugs. The extent of their operations may be judged by a telegram that arrived on the premises when the police were in possession, ordering 2421 bs for the United States.

A woman accomplice employed by a forwarding firm secured parcels after they had passed the Customs examination and substituted drugs for the contents so skilfully that the tampering was unsuspected. The bulk of the trade was done via Copenhagen.—Sun.

TEN ARRESTS MADE. ' DRUGS EXPORTED AS SHAVING SOAP AND BOOT POLISH. ENORMOUS PROFITS, (Received Jan. 13, 8.50 p.m.) BERLIN, Jan. 12. The police have uprooted what is believed to be the general headquarters in Europe of a vast illicit traffic in cocaine, morphine, and other drugs, and a gang of ten, some of whom are of Russian origin, have been arrested. The police traced the export to Japan and China of enormous quantities of drugs manufactured in Germany. Expert chemists are believed to have co-operated with the drugs so treated that they appeared in the guise of harmless articles, such as shaving soap, boot polish, and varnish. The traffic yielded enormous profits, the usual price paid by Chinese purchasers being equal to £4 per ounce, of which the original cost was one-sixth of that sum. The drugs were at first shipped via London, but such large quantities were seized that the smugglers latterly dispatched the goods through Copenhagen.—A. and N.Z.O.A.