by Martin Booth
Where a ship was found to be smuggling, a common penalty was to fine the ship’s owners although, on occasion, the captain might be able to convince the authorities of his, the crew and the owners’ innocence. The captain of SS Silveryew succeeded in allaying a fine, the manager of the Silver Line stating on behalf of the owners:
This is the work of an organised gang who try it on all ships going from the Far East to America … No one knows how they work or get the opium on board. It is a great mystery to me how they could have got that enormous amount of dope aboard without being seen. The only way they can be found out … is when one of their own gang gives them away. I think this happened in the present case.
The Second World War generally made things difficult for international smugglers, with supply regions being cut off. Illicit opiate sales dropped sharply in 1939—40 and only slowly increased during the war years. As the war continued, most smuggling was conducted on a small scale by individual merchant sailors or troops returning home.
In the United States, heroin from Mexico began to arrive, carried by peasant couriers: they were colloquially known as ‘mules’, a name which has stuck to drug couriers ever since. Opium, being bulky, was brought across the Rio Grande on rafts to be onward transported in baggage on trains, buses or in private cars. For what is probably the first time in the history of narcotics, it was also flown in by light aircraft.
In the Middle East, military transport was used to shift drugs around the region but so too were camels, which were made to carry opium in smooth-ended metal cylinders they were forced to swallow. A smuggling camel could be discovered by the wounds on its mouth caused by the forced feeding. It was said a camel could hold 7.5 kilograms in its belly for at least a month without discomfort. The habit lasted after the war for in 1952 Egyptian customs officers impounded a camel suspected of smuggling. In time, it became drowsy and was slaughtered. Inside its stomach were found twenty-eight rubber containers of opium of which at least one had leaked, causing the beast’s stupefaction. Rubber was used to avoid discovery by a metal detector and the trick was still in use at least to the 1970s for the transport of heroin by camel over the Turko-Syrian border.
The ingenuity of opiate smugglers is renowned. A famous instance of the smugglers’ artifice concerned opium from Hong Kong entering North America inside the horns of imported cattle. The beasts had their horns cut off, hollowed out and fitted with an inner screw thread. Packed with opium, the horns were then screwed back on to the animals. All went well until an astute customs agent spied one animal with its horn dangling downwards. Less exotic, hollowed out objects have been favoured for years: heels of boots and shoes, oranges and grapefruit, bars of soap, dolls and toys, plaster busts, fake antiquities, books, picture frames and even lengths of timber and grindstones. Any potential container is considered by the smuggler: bottles of medicine and toothpaste tubes in personal luggage, musical instruments (especially those with hollow sound boxes, like guitars), knobs of brass bedsteads, fountain pens, portable typewriters, shoulder pads, cameras, empty wrist-watch cases, photographic film cases marked do not open – the list is almost endless. Refrigerator casings, car panels and chassis members, railway carriage doors, spare tyres on commercial vehicles (and, in recent years, those actually on the road wheels), fuel tanks, barrels of tar, aircraft roof and wing cavities, bicycle frames and fire extinguishers have all been utilised.
On occasion, the smugglers resort not to hiding drugs but actually simply disguising them. Opium has been smuggled shaped like peanuts and inserted into ground-nut shells, made into candles, shaped as vehicle wheel-chocks and carved into objets d’art. In 1952, opium was being smuggled from Afghanistan and Pakistan into India inside walnut shells which had been emptied of their kernels, re-sealed and placed amongst ordinary walnuts, the authorities only becoming suspicious because the nuts were sent by parcel post rather than in bulk. Heroin, being an off-white or white powder, lends itself to overt smuggling. A Persian carpet importer smuggled heroin by liberally sprinkling it over suitably coloured carpets, which were then rolled up and shipped: the recipient hoovered them clean. Animal skins, to which white powder often clings as a residue of the preservative process, have also been similarly used. As an extension of the cow-horn scam, another instance concerned a Chinese woman carrying her pet cat and its recent litter of five new-born kittens who was arrested for smuggling opium. The pet cat was clean but the kittens had all been drowned, dried off, eviscerated, stuffed with opium and replaced alongside their mother. Kittens are not the only young creatures to be stuffed with heroin; there is the case of a dead human baby also being used, cradled by its erstwhile mother.
International courier services were, for a while, used by drug smugglers, but today this has largely stopped as companies refuse to accept packages from unknown customers unless these are open and able to be inspected. Ordinary postal services, however, are liable to abuse and have long been used by smugglers. The bulk of ordinary mailed parcels carried internationally makes comprehensive detection virtually impossible, despite modern technological methods to counteract arms smuggling and terrorism. Thousands of kilograms of heroin were smuggled out of Vietnam during the Vietnam War through the US Army Post Office; with half a million troops in the theatre of war, comprehensive parcel examination was impossible. Organised rings were established amongst troops who, in some instances, made vast profits from their trade. A particularly unsavoury side to this business was the smuggling of heroin inside body bags returning corpses home for burial: heroin was also smuggled back to the USA hidden in deep wounds in cadavers.
On numerous occasions, traffickers have used children with whom they have travelled, the latter sometimes carrying the contraband: in some instances, they have even used their own offspring. In 1989, in a case dubbed the ‘Heroin Baby Trial’, an Australian couple were sentenced to life imprisonment in Thailand after trying to smuggle 5.53 kilograms of heroin out of the country in a pillow in their year-old infant’s pram. The method of using children is based upon the knowledge that law enforcement agencies are reluctant to prosecute children because of their age, the complex laws governing minors, the difficulty of proving intent on the child’s part and the fact that many are ignorant of what they are doing.
Chemical trickery is also in the smugglers’ evasive arsenal. The plainest method is merely mixing a powdered drug, such as heroin or morphine, with another similar-looking powder. Morphine has been smuggled in rice and flour whilst heroin has been hidden in cosmetic powder or talc. Separation is a simple matter of dissolving and evaporation. This can, of course, go wrong. A Chinese smuggler was caught in 1947 through his own stupidity. He dissolved 125 grams of opium in boiling water then soaked a length of cloth in it and left it to dry – but forgot opium smells, especially when it is warm. He was arrested on a crowded bus and executed.
A particularly clever quasi-chemical technique was used in smuggling by sea. A lightweight sealed box containing drugs was tied to a bag of salt or sugar and dropped overboard. When the sugar or salt dissolved, the sealed box floated to the surface to be collected. A modern variation on this theme came to light in 1994. It involves a boat dropping a consignment overboard in a waterproof box, attached to weights, a buoy and a tracking device consisting of a transponder beacon and a receiver. The weights hold the consignment on the sea-bed. At a later date, which can be weeks ahead, a collection vessel arrives following the transponder and, by sending a signal to the receiver, triggers the release of the weights. The buoy carries the consignment to the surface to be picked up.
A major factor favouring smugglers is the high value of heroin in relation to its volume. A kilogram of pure heroin takes up little more room than an average book: after cutting, it can provide up to 200,000 doses. This makes the smuggling of small quantities economically feasible and allows drug syndicates to accept a degree of discovery. It is, from their point of view, better to spread their risk than to put all their eggs in one basket – and the odd arr
est is to their advantage for it mollifies the authorities. Recently, heroin has been found being smuggled out of Hong Kong in postcards which have been carefully peeled into two halves, with a small amount of heroin being inserted and the card repasted.
With small quantities being viable, smugglers frequently hide heroin about their persons. Body packs are taped onto the torso or around the thighs: women enhance their busts with shaped packets inside their bras whilst men can appear as beer-gutted football supporters or well-padded fat cats. Two American women were arrested at Bangkok airport as they boarded a Seattle-bound flight in March 1992 with 3.5 kilograms of heroin strapped to their legs. ‘Pregnant’ women are sometimes podgy with body packs rather than a foetus: one smuggler was caught with tiny bags of heroin under his dentures, his slurred speech giving him away. Some resort to tailor-made undergarments fitted with pockets. As an extension to the powdered carpet trick, some passengers (particularly elderly ones) rub heroin into their grey hair and shampoo it out at their destination.
Heroin is also carried internally by two methods. First, the drug is placed into a sealed metal or heavy rubber container known colloquially as a ‘charger’, lubricated with Vaseline and pushed up the anus or vagina: such traffickers are known as ‘stuffers’. An example of the type is a British woman, Sandra Gregory, who was arrested in Bangkok in 1993 as she tried to board a plane to Tokyo with 142 grams of heroin concealed in her vagina. Second, it is put into tiny flexible rubber containers and swallowed: these smugglers are called ‘swallowers’. Condoms tied with dental floss or fishing line are ideal containers being easily swallowed, the smuggler easing them down smeared with syrup: on occasion, the lubricated surfaces suffice. The rubber is also highly elastic and less likely to fracture. Fingers cut from latex rubber gloves (usually of the surgical rather than kitchen variety) have been found, also tied with dental floss which is far more tensile than cotton, resists stomach acids and does not stretch when wet. At their destination, the smugglers either pull the chargers out or take a heavy dose of laxative.
All is well unless the smuggler is X-rayed. One of the earliest recorded cases of smuggling by ingestion dates to June 1945 and involved a Mrs Chowning who was taken at Laredo, Texas, en route from Mexico. Fluoroscopic examination revealed foreign objects in her stomach. She was dosed with laxative and excreted thirty-one packages of heroin. Since then, swallowers have increased the number of packages they ingest. The average is 70 to 80, but British customs have found 260 in one person: it may yet prove to be the world record.
If customs officials suspect a swallower, they apprehend and continuously observe them twenty-four hours a day – this is referred to as ‘baby-sitting’ – until the suspect defecates and passes the packages which are then collected. Frequent urine samples are also taken and, if drug urine levels start to rise, implying a package is leaking, the smuggler is instantly hospitalised and operated upon, a customs officer present at surgery to seize any removed evidence.
Things can go badly wrong for the smuggler without customs officials’ involvement. Amongst other occurrences, in February 1982, 42 condoms each containing 4 grams of heroin were obtained from the stomach and lower intestine of an American en route by air through Hong Kong. The haul was found during the autopsy. One condom had burst, bringing the carrier a particularly nasty death. Most ingested seizures range from 0.5 to 1.7 kilograms. More recently, in 1992, a Colombian woman was picked up in Bogotá as she was about to board a Miami-bound flight. It was discovered she had 752 grams of heroin, in 16 sealed plastic bags, surgically implanted into her buttocks.
Nowadays, airlines co-operate with law enforcement agencies, for a good number of individual smugglers fly long-haul. Cabin staff on flights in-bound to America are given cash incentives by US Customs for pointing out passengers who did not eat or drink: they might be swallowers. Some airlines note passengers who refuse food, too frequently visit the lavatory, seem deliberately not to sleep and who are uneasy in their seats for no apparent reason. On certain routes, specific nationalities are carefully observed: for example, Chinese and Thai nationals are watched in-bound to London, with West Africans outward-bound from Hong Kong where they are infamous as smugglers.
Smugglers often take roundabout routes to throw customs officials off their trail. They fly from a drug producing to a drug-free territory, stay a while and then fly onwards after re-ticketing, thus disguising their original point of departure. Some syndicates use relays of carriers to the same effect whilst flight-loading is also used whereby several carriers embark on the same flight: if one is stopped, the others may get through. A Filipino smuggling ring intercepted bringing heroin into the USA in 1970 had eight couriers on a single flight.
The most effective protection a trafficker can hold against detection is a diplomatic passport which affords total immunity from customs searches at air- and seaports. For decades it has been used, and remains, as a means of smuggling. At one time, in the 1960s, it was such a widespread method of avoiding detection that customs officers in both Europe and the USA wryly suggested the initials CD (meaning Corps Diplomatique) should stand for Contrebandier Distingué.
Examples of diplomatic traffickers are legion but several stand out because they were Ambassadors. Maurico Rosal (Guatemalan Ambassador to the Netherlands and Belgium), along with Salvador Pardo-Bolland (Mexican Ambassador to Bolivia), smuggled heroin worth at least $5 million between them, running it from Europe to the USA: Pardo-Bolland was successfully sentenced to eighteen years’ imprisonment in the USA. In 1971, the Laotian Prince Sopsaianna arrived in Paris to take up the post of Laotian Ambassador to France. As a result of a tip-off, his baggage was stopped and searched, one of his suitcases being found to contain 60 kilograms of heroin. The matter was covered up but the French government refused to recognise his diplomatic credentials and he returned to Laos.
Most modern heroin transhipment is done by containerised freight aboard ships, air freight cargo, vehicles, international mail parcels, concealment on commercial airline flights and light aircraft. The largest shipments go by cargo container, such as the seizure of 494 kilograms of South-east Asian heroin by US Customs near Oakland, California, in 1991. It originated in Thailand and was shipped via Taiwan, hidden in a consignment of plastic bags. Taiwan was used as a way-post to disguise the country of origin of the container by redocumentation. Another means of shipment is in torpedo-shaped containers bolted below the water-line onto the bilge-keels of large vessels. These are impossible to detect without examination by a diving team.
Recent statistics of heroin smuggling into Britain give an indication of the world-wide situation, although Britain, being close to continental Europe, receives a disproportionately high percentage by road. The figures are 33.9 per cent brought in by vehicle, 19.9 per cent by freight or cargo, 14.9 per cent in baggage, 3.9 per cent on person, 1.6 per cent concealed internally, and 25.8 per cent in other ways, including post, sea drops, diplomatic bag services and light aircraft.
The high volume of modern international trade and passenger movements makes the searching of every likely means of smuggling impossible. An example of the task may be seen in the small area covered by Hong Kong where, in an average year, customs authorities have to contend with over 52,000 ocean-going vessels, 250,000 smaller craft, 71,000 aircraft landings, 42 million travellers, 7 million vehicles and 11 million packages of cargo. Searching or even observing such a volume of traffic is beyond human abilities.
Despite the complex subterfuge needed to smuggle, traffickers have not and will not be put off. They accept some of their shipments will be intercepted and budget accordingly in the knowledge their profit margins are so high. And there are always people willing to act as mules. These may be petty criminals looking to make a career in the trade, international prostitutes obliged to carry for their pimps, tourists who think they can get away with it, global back-packers and hippies short of money for the next leg of their journey or, as is frequently the case, simply poor people in dir
e financial straits, hoping to raise some capital. In their need or greed, they forget the one traffickers’ maxim – mules are expendable: and they are now so plentiful they are often referred to as ants.
In the modern world of intercontinental trade and tourism, it is well nigh impossible to apprehend more than a small percentage of smugglers and dealers. Many factors other than the wiles of the traffickers gain relevance. Geographical location is an important element.
The USA has always had a huge problem, due to the length of its borders and seaboards which are impossible to police. Access is easy through the many settlements along the Mexican or Canadian borders, small ports on the West Coast or the Gulf of Mexico, so close to the Caribbean islands. The Mexican–USA border follows the Rio Grande for 1900 kilometres, most of which can be crossed. Expanses of desert allow light aircraft to fly below radar and land at disused airfields or even in the desert itself. Cargoes can be dropped undiscovered by parachute. Of the Canadian border, 5000 kilometres run through unpopulated wilderness. Add this to the millions of vehicles which cross the frontiers annually and the millions of passengers who arrive by scheduled airline, not to mention private aircraft and yachts, and the problem seems truly insurmountable.