National Affairs: Embassy Smuggling

The Chilean Ambassador to the U. S., Señor Don Carlos G. Dávila, some time ago received a mysterious package from India. In it was a rare Moslem rug which an attached note offered to the Ambassador for $10,000. If he did not want this rug, said the note, would he please “return” it to a specified Manhattan address? Puzzled, the Ambassador consulted the U. S. State Department.

Last week the Department, after an investigation, declared that evidently many a foreign embassy at Washington has been thus used for smuggling high-priced goods into the U. S.; that a band of international crooks has thus been able to defraud the U. S. Treasury of at least $350,000 in duty. Chilean Ramon Silva, the band’s leader, was arrested in India, confessed his crime.