On a Brooklyn pier one morning last fortnight, a detail of U.S. customs officers quietly moved in on a pile of 600 neat, wooden crates. Customs Inspector Jacob Ehrlich pried into one of the crates with a crowbar. Cried he: "Just as I thought!" His companions pressed closer, saw a gleaming white water closet. They seized the entire $10,500 shipment.
Last week the sobersided Department of Commerce explained: "For some time . . . evidence had been accumulating . . . that abnormally large shipments of water closets were moving into export channels." Commerce had discovered that exporters seemed to be...
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