Part 15

On February 9, 1956, Japanese postal inspectors at Yokohama seized a shipment of narcotics which proved to be of special interest to Customs agents in San Francisco and Seattle. While making a routine examination of a package mailed by international air mail, they found 167 grams of heroin and 217 capsules of cocaine hidden in the folds of a pair of woman’s pajamas and slippers. The package was addressed to a Mrs. Hazel Scott in Seattle, Washington. The Customs declaration tag gave the name of the sender as W. M. Scott and listed an address in Yokohama. The addresses were written by typewriter. The narcotics were in a manila envelope bearing the words “For Walker.” The Japanese turned this information over to the U.S. Embassy.

During the years of the Allied Occupation of Japan after World War II, American and Japanese authorities had achieved close cooperation in combatting the traffic in narcotics and other contraband. This cooperation was continued after the signing of the Peace Treaty in 1952 formally ending the occupation.

The United Nations made the control of narcotics traffic one of its important objectives soon after its formation, resulting in a combined effort by many nations to strangle the illicit trade by joint efforts which were unknown in the years prior to the war.

Treasury agents were stationed in Tokyo as liaison officers to work with Japanese authorities on any cases involving American interests. And it was a routine matter for the Japanese police to give Treasury agents the information on the seizure of the package addressed to Mrs. Scott. This information was relayed from the U.S. Embassy to Customs agents in San Francisco.

The agents found there had been a seaman named Walter Scott aboard an American naval vessel in Yokohama at the time the package was sent--but Scott had not mailed a package while his ship was in Yokohama. Obviously whoever had sent the package containing narcotics had used Scott’s name without his knowledge. As for the envelope marked “For Walker,” agents suspected that it was probably intended for a known narcotics dealer named Roosevelt Walker, who first came to the attention of Customs in 1940 when he was arrested in Nogales, Arizona, and was charged with smuggling a quantity of marihuana into the country.

And agents found another interesting fact: Walker was a companion of Robert L. King. King had been in Tokyo at the time the package was mailed, but there apparently was no way to link him with this smuggling effort.

And so the surveillance of King was continued. On July 16, 1956, agents trailed King to the International Airport at San Francisco. He had booked passage on Pan American Flight 831 for Tokyo by way of Honolulu and Manila. King was nattily dressed in a brown business suit and he wore a rakish straw hat as he boarded the plane. The agents watched his plane leave San Francisco at 10 A.M., making no effort to stop him. Honolulu and Tokyo were alerted to the fact that King was aboard the plane and that his movements should be watched.

King was permitted to enter Japan unmolested. He also was allowed to leave Japan for a trip to Hong Kong, where he spent several days shopping before returning to Tokyo.

The return to Tokyo was a mistake for King. For months Japanese police had been trying to trace the typewriter which had written the addresses on the package containing the narcotics. They found that King, at the time the package was mailed, had been living in Yokohama at the Tomo Yei Hotel. They also found that King had rented a typewriter--two days before the parcel was mailed--from a Mr. Ono who ran a shop near the hotel. And then they matched a sample of typing from this machine with the typed address on the package containing narcotics. The comparison left no doubt that this was the machine which had been used by the would-be smuggler.

When King returned from Hong Kong on September 20, he was arrested by Japanese police at the Tokyo International Airport and lodged in jail at Yokohama, charged with narcotics smuggling. Unable to raise money for a bail bond, King remained in jail for six months while authorities in Japan and the United States investigated his case. But at last he obtained money from friends in the United States and made bond. He was released, pending a trial. The Japanese held on to his passport as insurance that he would not leave the country.

Passport or no passport, King was determined to get out of Japan before his trial. He went to the Yokohama waterfront and found an old friend who agreed to smuggle him aboard the military transport _General C. G. Morton_. The ship docked at Pier 5 at Oakland on April 14, 1957, and King slipped ashore.

Within a matter of hours, Customs agents were on his trail. FBI agents were called in on the case because King had returned to the country without a passport, which was in the hands of Japanese police. The agents found a seaman who testified he had seen King aboard the _C. G. Morton_. The seaman told agents: “About two days before we got to San Francisco, a friend came to me and said, ‘How would you like to make some money?’ I asked him how and he said, ‘Take a package off the ship for me in San Francisco.’ He showed me the package and it contained ten rubbers filled with heroin. About two days after we got to San Francisco I took the narcotics off at Pier 5, Oakland Army Terminal. My friend walked off just ahead of me. I had the package of heroin under my coat. We got in my car and went to a motel somewhere in the Richmond district and registered. We stashed the package of heroin in our room. I don’t know who picked up the heroin. The next night my friend gave me King’s address and told me to go and see him. I went to the hotel and King gave me $500.”

King denied that he had re-entered the United States illegally and claimed that he had returned on a Pan American flight from Tokyo. But agents were able to prove that King had not been booked aboard the plane which he claimed he had been on. They broke down his alibis and at last King entered a plea of guilty to a charge of conspiracy to smuggle narcotics into the United States and to entering the United States without a passport. He was convicted, fined $13,000 and sent to prison for five years.

But it seems that whenever the Kings and the Lepkes are taken out of circulation, there is someone new to take their place. That is why there is a U.S. Customs force.

12

THE CASE OF THE CROOKED DIPLOMAT

The Case of the Crooked Diplomat had its beginning when an Arab informer whispered a warning to a U.S. Bureau of Narcotics agent in faraway Beirut, Lebanon. And before it was closed, agents of the Customs Bureau, the Bureau of Narcotics and the French Sûreté had teamed up in a cooperative drive to smash a ring of criminals attempting to smuggle $20 million worth of heroin into the United States.

They were an oddly assorted lot, the members of this ring. There were only four known members, but in early 1960 their operations had begun to stir alarm across the country among law enforcement agencies seeking the mysterious source of heroin which at intervals had begun to appear in large lots on the underworld market.

The quartet was composed of:

Mauricio Rosal, forty-seven, Guatemala’s ambassador to Belgium and the Netherlands, and the son of a respected Central American diplomat; a small, portly, balding man known favorably in many countries as a witty conversationalist and shrewd politician of seeming integrity; something of a dandy, he usually wore dark homburg hats, expensively tailored dark blue suits and maroon ties; he affected an air of aristocratic elegance both in dress and manners.

Etienne Tarditi, fifty-five, a short, heavy-jowled, paunchy, gross figure of the Parisian underworld with a cloudy background; addicted to trench coats, pork-pie hats and the notion that he resembled Alfred Hitchcock (which he did); a gambler who played for big stakes in narcotics, with connections in many countries; a manipulator who usually remained in the background.

Charles Bourbonnais, thirty-nine, a slender, dapper steward for Trans World Airways, who had an eye for a pretty girl when his wife was not looking; often seen in the company of Tarditi when in Paris, and a liberal spender for a salaried man; the messenger and fixer for the ring.

Nicholas Calamaris, forty-seven, a powerful man with a huge nose, jug ears, skull-like face and long arms which reached almost to his knees; employed as a New York longshoreman, but this job was merely the front for his nighttime operations as a big-time dealer in narcotics; a cautious, secretive man with few close friends.

In the winter and spring of 1960, Federal, state and city police agencies were at a loss to explain the source of heroin which was at times available in almost any quantity desired. Agents canvassed their underworld tipsters with little luck. The informers knew only that at intervals the word would spread that another large load of heroin had arrived in New York and was available. Where it came from and how it entered the country none could--or would--say.

It was not until June that Narcotics Agent Paul Knight picked up the first clue of substance in Beirut, which had become an important listening post for the Narcotics Bureau.

A tipster whispered to Knight that heroin processed in Beirut from a morphine base had been sent to a smuggling ring in Paris. The reputed leader of the ring was a man named Etienne Tarditi. He had, the tipster said, smuggled as much as 40 to 60 kilograms of heroin from Beirut to France, and, according to rumors, it had gone from France to the United States. The carrier was said to be a Spanish-speaking diplomat.

This was the first break. The information from Beirut was passed on to the French Sûreté Nationale with a request that the Narcotics Bureau be informed of Tarditi’s movements and his associates.

In August, the Sûreté informed the Bureau that Tarditi had returned to Paris from a trip to New York. His plane companion on the trip, and on several previous trips, had been the Spanish-speaking Guatemalan ambassador, Mauricio Rosal. The Sûreté added that Tarditi also had been seen in Paris in the company of a TWA steward named Charles Bourbonnais.

From this time forward, Tarditi, Rosal and Bourbonnais were under almost constant police surveillance on the Continent. When Bourbonnais returned to the United States on August 24 he was placed under surveillance by Narcotics and Customs agents.

Bourbonnais, the agents found, was married to a TWA hostess. He lived on Long Island and in recent months had sold a residence for $40,000. He always seemed to have plenty of money, and he was something of a playboy when his wife was away from home or when he was in Paris.

Agents trailed Bourbonnais when he drove from the airport. He drove a devious route to an apartment house in Queens. He stood at the entrance of the building looking furtively about before entering.

“That guy is really jumpy,” an agent remarked to another. “Do you think he knows we are on his tail?”

“I don’t know,” was the answer, “but we’d better drop the surveillance. He’s suspicious of something. He could have spotted us.”

The surveillance was called off temporarily. It wasn’t until later that the agents learned that Bourbonnais’ wariness had nothing to do with narcotics peddling. On this particular occasion he was on his way to a rendezvous with a girl friend--and he merely wanted to be certain that he wasn’t being followed by private detectives hired by his wife.

At the same time, Customs agents began checking into the background of Mauricio Rosal, who they found had been a frequent visitor to the United States. Leafing through old files one day, Agent Mario Cozzi found a report showing that almost twenty years earlier Rosal had been under investigation for alleged smuggling, although nothing had ever been proved against him.

He had arrived in New York City aboard the SS _Nyassa_ on August 9, 1941, carrying papers which identified him as a Guatemalan chargé d’affaires. He had claimed--and been granted--diplomatic courtesies when passing through Customs with his wife. His declaration showed that he was enroute from Lisbon to Mexico City on his way to Honduras.

The Rosals had remained in New York only a few days and then had departed with their seventeen pieces of luggage, none of which was subjected to Customs examination.

A few days after their departure, Customs agents were informed by a tipster that Rosal had carried essential oils worth $40,000 and diamonds worth $37,000 into the city. A diamond dealer was found who admitted that Rosal had brought the diamonds to him and offered to sell them.

“I refused to buy unless Rosal could produce receipts showing he had paid the customs duty,” the dealer said. “When he could not show me a proper clearance from Customs, I turned down his offer.”

Customs, however, had reason to believe that Rosal had disposed of the essential oils and the diamonds before he left the city. Months later, Customs Agent Salvador Pena had interviewed Rosal in Mexico City, inquiring about his reported failure to list the dutiable imports on his declaration.

Rosal blandly admitted he had carried the oils with him in a wooden box. “I brought them over from Vichy for a friend,” he said, “and delivered them to his brother at the Waldorf-Astoria. I was assured the duty had been paid and I never dreamed, of course, there was anything irregular.”

As for the diamonds, Rosal admitted he had approached a dealer and offered to sell him several diamonds. But he insisted that when no agreement was reached, he had taken the gems on to Venezuela, where he had disposed of them. Had he made the sale in New York, he added with a shrug, he would naturally have paid the required customs duty.

There was nothing further that Customs could do about the matter and the case was closed. The report was filed away to gather dust until Rosal’s name was linked with that of Tarditi.

On September 30, six weeks after Cozzi had found the old report, the Sûreté advised the Narcotics Bureau that Rosal and Tarditi had purchased tickets for a flight to New York and it was suspected they would be carrying narcotics. Tarditi was booked to arrive at Idlewild International Airport on October 1, and Rosal was due to arrive a day later. Bourbonnais was scheduled to leave Paris a short time after Tarditi as the steward aboard TWA’s Flight 801.

As the original tip on the case had come to the Narcotics Bureau, the investigation was in the hands of District Director George H. Gaffney, a veteran agent, with Customs playing a supporting role.

Thus began one of the most remarkable cases of Federal agency cooperation in the war against smuggling. Gaffney laid his plans well, and when TWA’s Flight 801 touched down at Idlewild at 5 P.M. on October 1, a squad of Narcotics and Customs agents was waiting to place Tarditi under surveillance. Customs inspectors had been alerted to signal an identification when Tarditi handed over his baggage declaration, and to make only a cursory examination of a single piece of his luggage.

Tarditi stepped from the plane wearing a trench coat and a pork-pie hat set jauntily at an angle. He seemed unconcerned when the inspector asked him to open the single bag he carried to the inspection station. The inspector noted on his declaration that his destination was the Sherry Netherlands Hotel.

And so it was that Tarditi passed through Customs with no hint given that several pairs of eyes were watching every move he made. A porter carried Tarditi’s luggage to a waiting taxi while a radio message was flashed from Idlewild to a squad of agents in midtown Manhattan that the suspect was enroute to the Sherry Netherlands. Agents were instructed to keep him under surveillance when he reached the hotel.

The taxi driver stowed Tarditi’s bag into the trunk of his cab and slid behind the wheel. He said, “Where to, sir?”

Tarditi replied, “To the Savoy Hilton.”

The driver noted the destination on his trip sheet. He also scribbled the words “Savoy Hilton” on a piece of paper which he wadded into the palm of his left hand. The driver was Narcotics Agent Francis Waters.

As Waters drove from the loading platform, he placed his left hand carelessly on the doorframe and dropped the piece of paper from the car window. He noted with satisfaction in the rear-view mirror that the car behind him stopped suddenly and a man jumped out to pick up the note.

At the Savoy Hilton, Tarditi was given Room 1337. The guest in 1339 was a Narcotics Bureau agent.

Bourbonnais arrived on schedule about an hour after Tarditi.

The next afternoon, Sunday, agents were stationed at strategic points when Rosal walked from the Pan American jet and made his way to the Customs barrier where Inspector Pasquale Cammello had been assigned to weigh and clear his luggage.

Discreet inquiries at the State Department in Washington had disclosed that Rosal was not accredited in any way as a diplomat to the United States, and, further, that the Guatemalan embassy knew nothing of his trip to this country.

Under these circumstances, Rosal was travelling as a private citizen with no legitimate right to the courtesies usually accorded visiting diplomats. Nevertheless, he boldly claimed the privilege of immunity for the four suitcases which accompanied him and Inspector Cammello gave no hint that the claim was anything but routine.

Cammello noted that the bags weighed 19, 25, 50 and 52 pounds when he placed them on the scales. He chatted pleasantly with the diplomat and then waved Rosal on his way. A Pan American passenger representative was waiting to drive the Ambassador to the Plaza Hotel near the Savoy Hilton.

Rosal registered into Room 1205 at the Plaza, where agents had arranged to occupy an adjoining room. He had a leisurely dinner in the hotel dining room and then he strolled to the nearby Savoy, where he met Tarditi in the lobby. The men kissed each other on the cheek and then sat in a secluded corner in animated conversation. It was almost midnight when they parted and went to their rooms.

The following morning, Tarditi left his hotel and took a cab to an apartment building on East 79th Street. He remained in the building only a few minutes, and when he emerged he was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper. He went directly back to his hotel.

About 11 A.M., Tarditi left the Savoy Hilton, carrying in his hand the brown parcel, and he walked to the Plaza Hotel.

Customs Agent Mario Cozzi was one of those watching Tarditi. Cozzi never knew what it was that drew his attention to a battered 1957 Ford station wagon parked at the northeast corner of Central Park South. Perhaps it was the driver. He was a huge man with a skull-like face and large ears who seemed to be interested in Tarditi, too. From long habit, Cozzi made a mental note of the license number, New York LK8935.

Tarditi went directly to Rosal’s room, and left the brown parcel with the diplomat. Then he returned to his own hotel.

Narcotics Supervisor George Gaffney and Customs Agent-in-Charge Carl Esposita sat in a parked radio car near the Plaza Hotel entrance. They were reasonably certain that if heroin were being smuggled, then the contraband would be in Rosal’s luggage, for which he had claimed diplomatic immunity. If their suspicions were correct, the question was: Where would the delivery take place and to whom?

A dozen agents were dispersed throughout the area in radio cars, receiving their orders by radio from Gaffney. At noon an alert was flashed when Rosal called for a bellman to take his bags from his room to a taxi. He checked out of the hotel and the bellman placed his four suitcases in the trunk of a taxi.

Only a few minutes earlier, Tarditi had left his hotel. Agents reported by radio that he had gone to the corner of 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue, where he was met by Charles Bourbonnais, the TWA steward, and by a tall, gangling man with a skull-like face. The three men were still standing on the corner talking when Rosal’s taxi pulled away from the Plaza Hotel.

“This must be it,” Gaffney said to Esposita. The command car followed a discreet distance behind Rosal’s cab, which went directly across town to the corner of 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue. There the diplomat stepped from the taxi to be joined by Tarditi and Bourbonnais. Gaffney’s radio car continued on down the street to a vacant parking space.

From the shadow of a doorway across the street, Mario Cozzi snapped a picture of Rosal, Tarditi and Bourbonnais as they stood talking beside the taxi. Then he noticed a familiar-looking Ford station wagon parked nearby. The man at the wheel was the jug-eared driver he had seen parked earlier in the day near the Plaza Hotel, watching Tarditi. The driver was Nicholas Calamaris.

Rosal spoke to the taxi driver, who opened the trunk of the car. The three men looked into the trunk and for a moment it appeared they were going to transfer the luggage from the cab to the station wagon. But Bourbonnais suddenly strode toward the station wagon, while Tarditi and Rosal entered the taxi after the driver had closed the lid of the trunk.

In that interval of a few seconds, a dozen agents were prepared to rush the men if the luggage had been transferred to the station wagon. When nothing happened, Gaffney withheld his order.

Bourbonnais slid into the seat beside Calamaris, who drove toward Third Avenue with Rosal and Tarditi following closely behind in the taxi. At Third Avenue the two cars swung north and still the occupants were totally unaware that their cars were bracketed by the automobiles carrying Narcotics and Customs agents.

At 75th Street, the taxi was halted by a stop light while the station wagon continued on. Gaffney made a sudden decision. “Let’s not tail them any farther,” he snapped into the microphone. “Let’s get them now.” The control car quickly shot forward and swerved in front of the cab. Other cars closed in to block the station wagon.

Mike Cozzi leaped from his car to the taxi, jerked open the door and flashed his agent’s badge. “We’re Treasury agents,” he said. “Don’t make a move.”

“What is this?” Rosal exclaimed.

Tarditi protested, “Do you know who this man is? He is a diplomat! He is entitled to diplomatic immunity!”

The agents began firing questions at the two men.

“A diplomat to what country?”

“I am the Guatemalan ambassador to Brussels.”

“Are you on a diplomatic mission to the United States?”

“No.”

“Does your government know you are in the United States?”

“Well, no....”

At the station wagon, Calamaris was protesting, too. “Why are you stopping us? What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry,” an agent said, “just get moving. Drive off the Avenue onto 76th Street. Over there!”

“I don’t know nothing....”

“Get the car moving. You’re blocking traffic.”

Passersby gawked curiously as the four men were taken from the automobiles with a swarm of agents around them.

“What’s in the trunk of the cab?” Rosal was asked.