Border Guard

The Story of the U.S. Customs Service

Don Whitehead

• Publisher: Burtyrki Books
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839742064
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'armée et de la marine

Border Guard, first published in 1963 by Pulitzer-winning journalist Don Whitehead, is a look at the efforts of the U.S. Customs Service (now U.S. Customs and Border Protection) to secure America's borders and ports of entry from illegal items and to collect duties. (As noted by the author, before the implementation of the federal income tax, customs duties were the only source of revenue for the government.) Chapters deal with the major issues facing the Service, including illegal drugs, diamond smuggling, stolen works of art, organized crime networks, and pornography; numerous case histories are provided to illustrate the work of the Service. A chapter is also devoted to the origins of the customs service from the earliest days of the United States.

1. A SLIGHT CASE OF CONSCIENCE

One of the most serious problems confronting the Customs Service in this century is the control of the illegal importation of narcotics. Some of the difficulties involved in handling dope smuggling can be seen when it is realized that these drugs are being sent from all over the world, by every means of international transportation. The comparatively small number of Customs agents rely on patience, diligence and intelligence, and they are doing a remarkable job. Since this problem is so important, and so typical of the job the Service does, we will begin with the story of one successful case.

On the night of May 17, 1955, seventeen-year-old Truls Arild Halvorsen sat in an office in the Customs House in Boston, Massachusetts, blinking back the unmanly tears that threatened to spill down his face. He kept trying to swallow the dry lump of fear in his throat, but it wouldn’t go away. And he had to concentrate hard to remember the answers to all the questions being asked of him by the men sitting about the room.

He was a tall, handsome youth. His blond hair was cropped in a crew cut. His eyes were as blue as the waters in the fjords of his native Norway which he had left for the first time only a little more than a year before. That was when he had shipped out as a seaman aboard the MS Fernhill.

He remembered the day he left home his father had said, “We are very proud of you, son.” His mother had wept as she clung to him. His friends had gathered to shake his hand and wish him good luck on his first voyage. He had felt grown up and proud and excited—ready to cope with anything the future might bring.

But now...now he sat, a virtual prisoner, answering questions about his role in the plot to smuggle narcotics into the United States. It was a nightmare he wished he could forget, but he knew he never could. The men around him were members of the U.S. Customs’ Special Racket Squad out of New York City, whose job it was to run down smugglers.

He heard the big, soft-voiced man sitting across the desk from him—the agent named Dave Cardoza—say, “Let’s go over the story again, Halvorsen. This time it’s for the official record. Tell it just as you did before—exactly what happened.”

Halvorsen swallowed once more and nodded. He didn’t need a translator to understand what Cardoza was saying because he spoke excellent English as well as German.

“Will you state your full name?”

The youth replied: ‘Truls Arild Halvorsen.” And the recording began.

Q—What is your position on the ship?

A—Ordinary seaman.

Q—What vessel are you on?

A—The name of the ship is the Fernhill.

Q—How long have you been employed aboard the Fernhill?

A—Three trips, about fifteen months.

Q—How old are you, Mr. Halvorsen?

A—I am seventeen and a half years old.

Was it possible this had begun only a few weeks ago? It had begun that day in Hong Kong when he met the Chinese stranger aboard the Fernhill and, like a fool, he had listened to the man’s talk about making easy money. That was when he should have walked away.

But he hadn’t walked away. And that’s why he was now in this strange room in Boston with these men who asked so many questions....

Q—Mr. Halvorsen, on the 15th of March, 1955, where was your ship, the Fernhill?

A—It was in Hong Kong.

Q—And did you have any conversation with a visitor to the ship?

A—Yes, I was talking to him.

Q—Will you explain what conversation you had and with whom it was?

A—The man was a tailor and he said to me that he wanted to talk about some business down in my cabin.

Q—Had you ever met him before?

A—No.

Halvorsen recalled that he had talked to the Chinese tailor about the price of a suit Several tailors had boarded the Fernhill to solicit orders as soon as the ship dropped anchor. Most of the ship’s crew had placed orders for suits, but Halvorsen had decided the price was more than he could afford. It was after this that the tailor—a well-dressed man of medium height with a wart on the lobe of his left ear—whispered to Halvorsen that he would like to talk to him alone in his cabin.

Q—What did he say when he talked about this other business of smuggling?

A—He asked me if I wanted to make some money.

Q—What did you say?

A—Yes, I said.

Q—Then what did he say?

A—He said, “I can give you opium if you will take the opium to San Francisco.” He said that if I would do this for him he would pay me $1,200 American. [In the transcript of Halvorsen’s story, the young seaman referred to the narcotics sometimes as opium and at other times as cocaine and heroin. The narcotics in each case was heroin, a derivative of opium highly favored by drug addicts in the United States.]

Q—What did you say then?

A—I was not sure if I wanted to do it or not, but I did not say no.

The tailor then wrote an address on a slip of paper—No. 54 Cameron Road—and pressed it into Halvorsen’s hand. “If you decide you want the money, come to this address at seven o’clock tonight.”

By six o’clock that evening, Halvorsen had reached a decision. The sum of $1,200 sounded like a small fortune to the boy who had never in his life had more than a few dollars at one time. It was more money than he could save in many months at sea—enough to buy an interest in a fishing boat back in Norway.

Halvorsen dressed in his best blue trousers and white shirt for the trip ashore. When he left the Fernhill he carried a briefcase which the Chinese had suggested he bring along. He hailed a rickshaw at the ferry slip near the Peninsula Hotel, and gave the address on Cameron Road. Then he sat back to enjoy the gaudy, East-meets-West sights of Kowloon as the coolie trotted through streets swarming with Chinese, most of them refugees from Red China.

After he stepped from the rickshaw and paid the driver, he stood uncertainly at the curb looking about for the number 54. A Chinese came up to him and said, “You looking for Number Fifty-four?” Halvorsen said he was, and the man said, “You follow me.”...

Q—Where did he take you?

A—He took me inside the house and into a corridor. We turned right and there was a door. He knocked on the door.

Q—Was the house No. 54, Cameron Road, ground floor, Kowloon, Hong Kong?

A—Yes.

Q—Was there any number or anything written on the door of the corridor?

A—I don’t remember.

Q—Then what happened?

A—Somebody opened the door and said, “Please, come in.” He took my hand as in welcome. He said, “I am glad to see you,” or something like that and in the room was the Chinese tailor I saw on the ship and another man...

Halvorsen remembered sitting with the three Chinese at a small, round table. The room was dimly lit and dingy. One of the men offered him whiskey but he refused and instead asked for a glass of beer. A woman padded into the room and placed a bottle of beer on the table. And then he was aware that a Chinese girl was standing near him. But when he glanced at her, he was blinded momentarily by a flash of light and so startled that he started to rise from his chair.

The wart-eared tailor laughed and said, “Don’t worry. It was only a flash from a camera. We need a photograph to send to our man in San Francisco so he will be able to recognize you when you arrive with the packages.”

One of the Chinese, a short, fat man in shirt sleeves, took a slip of paper from his pocket and scrawled on it the words, “San Francisco.” He tore the paper in half, handing one part to Halvorsen. “You keep this half,” he said, “and we will send the other to our man in San Francisco. When you meet him, you give him your half of the paper and he can match the two halves to make sure you are the right man.”

“Where will I meet him?” Halvorsen asked.

The man wrote on another slip of paper “Lew Gar Kung Saw, 854 Gay Street, San Francisco.” He handed it to Halvorsen and said, “You deliver the packages of heroin to this man at this address. When you make the delivery, he will pay you twelve hundred dollars. Okay?”

Halvorsen nodded. “I guess it’s okay,” he said. Then he gave them the itinerary of the Fernhill. He told them the ship was scheduled to arrive in Boston on May 16. If possible, he would leave the ship there or in New York and travel by bus to San Francisco to make the delivery, after which he would return to Norway.

The fat Chinese left the room, and when he returned he was carrying ten cotton bags filled with heroin, each of them weighing about half a pound. He placed them in Halvorsen’s briefcase...

Q—What happened then?

A—Then he asked me if I saw the bags. I said, “Yes.” He said that was what I was going to take ashore and he said, “You have to keep it on your body.” And he showed me a white silk sash.

Q—Did he tell you how to use that white silk sash?

A—Yes. He said I was first to fold it double and put it around my waist and then I could put the white bags down in the folds of the sash. He said I should keep maybe two bags in front, two bags in the back and the others strapped to my legs.

After the Chinese put the heroin in the briefcase, Halvorsen left the house on Cameron Road. He returned to his ship and placed the briefcase in a ship’s locker. He explained to the officer in charge that it contained souvenirs.

From Hong Kong, the Fernhill steamed to Djakarta, Indonesia, where Halvorsen hurried ashore with several crew members for a look at the city. After a time he wandered away from the others. He was alone, sipping a glass of beer in a bar near the Hotel Des Indes, when a Javanese approached and stood beside him.

“Have you got anything you would like to sell?” the Javanese said. “Any clothes or shoes? I can get you a good price.”

Halvorsen looked at the man, a middle-aged Javanese with a jagged scar running from his left eyebrow to his chin. He said stiffly, “I’m not interested in small stuff.”

The Javanese slid into a chair beside the youth. “You mean you’ve got something else you would like to sell?” he asked. Halvorsen nodded, trying to appear casual and matter-of-fact. “Maybe we can do business,” Scar Face said. “What have you got to sell?”

Halvorsen said, “What would you pay for a pound of heroin?”

The Javanese was impressed. “You can get heroin? You are not fooling me?”

“I’m not telling a lie,” Halvorsen said. “How much for a pound?”

Scar Face said, “If it’s pure stuff, I’ll take two pounds and pay you ten thousand dollars American money.”

$10,000 for two pounds of heroin! Halvorsen was so startled that he blurted: “That’s too much. Five thousand would be enough. I’ll have to get the stuff from the ship.”

Scar Face said, “You wait here. I’ll be back.” And he hurried from the bar.

In less than five minutes he was back with two other men, one of them dressed in a police uniform. They took Halvorsen to the dock, where they boarded a police launch which carried them to the Fernhill. Halvorsen took Scar Face to his cabin and told him to wait there.

Then he went to the ship’s locker and removed two bags of heroin and brought them back to his quarters. The Javanese opened one of them. He took a pinch of the white powder and tasted it. “It looks and tastes like it’s pure stuff, but I don’t know. I’ll have to get a doctor to make a test.”

This precaution seemed reasonable enough to Halvorsen. He handed the two bags to the Javanese, who concealed them under his coat. They returned to the police boat which carried them back to the pier. And then he and Scar Face got into a car and drove to the outskirts of the city, where the car swung into a driveway beside a white frame house.

“This is the doctor’s house,” Scar Face said. “You wait in the car.” He carried the two bags into the house.

In a few minutes Scar Face came back to the car. “The doctor says it will take time to test the heroin. I can’t get the money until he makes the test. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

With appalling innocence, Halvorsen said, “I guess that’s okay.” And as Scar Face drove him back to the waterfront, they agreed to meet on the pier the following morning.

The next day Halvorsen went ashore to meet Scar Face. He waited at the agreed meeting place for more than two hours. Slowly it dawned on him that he would never see Scar Face again. He had...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• 1. A SLIGHT CASE OF CONSCIENCE
• 2. A TIME OF CRISIS
• 3. A PRESIDENT IS BAMBOOZLED
• 4. THE PIRATES OF NEW ORLEANS
• 5. THE DARK YEARS
• 6. BOOZE AND BRIBES
• 7. THE ENFORCERS
• 8. TEST TUBE DETECTIVES
• 9. THE INFORMERS
• 10. THE VIOLENT BORDER
• 11. A DIRTY BUSINESS
• 12. THE CASE OF THE CROOKED DIPLOMAT
• 13. A STRANGE LITTLE ROOM
• 14. THE DIAMOND SMUGGLERS
• 15. A FOOL’S DREAM
• 16. THE CHISELERS
• 17. THE INNOCENTS
• 18. THE STORMY WORLD OF ART
• 19. SEX AND THE CENSOR
• 20. OF TOY CANARIES AND PIRATES
• 21. THE MIDDLE MEN
• 22. THE RESTLESS AMERICAN
• About the Author