Smuggling has always been with us–and no end in sight

 Today, it’s narcotics and, sometimes, illegal immigrants. Unlike the latter, the narcotics flow both ways, B.C. ‘Bud’ going south, cocaine coming north, often as contra. Back then, it was narcotics from the Orient in the form of opium, then Chinese immigrants using B.C. as a doorway to the U.S., then rumrunning in the 1920s. As current news accounts remind us from time to time, this war between smugglers and law enforcement agencies, Canadian and American, goes on.

For some of those involved in the heyday of smuggling and rumrunning, the returns out-weighed the risks and they not only ‘grew grey in the service’ but made their fortunes. For some of their clients, however, the possibility of arrest and imprisonment was the least of their worries.

I’m referring to illegal Asian immigrants who made it to B.C. then had to complete their flight as human contraband into Washington. Not all of them made it. For years, even decades, the notorious ‘Pig Iron‘ James Kelly made a good living as a smuggler, operating between Vancouver Island and Washington.

Smuggling iron ingots, you ask?
No, smuggling Chinese immigrants, as many as 60 at a time and making dubious history for what was said to have been the largest load of its kind. That particular run cost him time in Washington’s infamous McNeill Island Penitentiary. Kelly acquired his nickname from the fact that, thereafter, he always carried a secondary cargo of scrap iron. That was for those occasions when he had the misfortune to run afoul of the U.S. Revenue Service, as it was in those days.

If it became apparent that he couldn’t outrun a cutter, he simply ditched the evidence by weighting down his illegal passengers and dumping them over the side. He got away with it more than once, legend tells us.

Does this sound like something out of the imagination of, say, a Jack London? As late as1914, it was reported that three Japanese stowaways had narrowly escaped this fate: “Smuggled men have to swim–strong suspicions at Seattle that stowaways brought form Japan are thrown overboard with hands tied,” reported the Victoria Colonist in a front-page story.

“SEATTLE, May 14.–Nogoueni Kamaskuki, an officer on the Japanese steamer Awa Maru, was arrested in Tacoma today and brought here, where he was placed in the county jail in default of $3,000 bond on an indictment returned by the Federal grand jury, charging him with smuggling three of his countrymen into the United States…”

The contraband passengers had boarded the ship at Yokohama where they stowed themselves away with Kamaskuki’s help, allegedly for 120 yen apiece. Upon arrival in Seattle, they were expected to swim ashore. Well, not expected to swim, exactly. As each man was brought up on deck, Kamaskuki had his hands tied.

Miraculously, all three survived, one man because a deck hand helped him, the others for reasons unstated.

Upon the officer’s being arrested, it was recalled that “several bodies had been found floating in the vicinity of the dock at various times, and that in several instances the hands had been tied”.

Shades of Pig Iron Kelly!
At last report, U.S. District Attorney Clay Allen was promising that if the ongoing investigation conclusively tied Kamaskuki to any of those deaths he’d be charged with murder.

Two months later, and closer to home, it was reported that police were looking into an alleged plot by smugglers based in Seattle, Tacoma, Sacramento, Stockton and San Francisco to bring in as many as 300 Chinese immigrants aboard a chartered ship from Macao.

From an isolated northern B.C. island they’d be taken to the Skeena River to blend with cannery workers whence they’d make their own way south. They’d also have to make their own arrangements to go on to the U.S. if they so chose. The cost of being smuggled was cheaper than the infamous Head Tax, incidentally: $300 vs. $500.

Police on both sides of the border had their own take on this plot which, they said, wasn’t to smuggle Chinese but to swindle those who put up the money to finance the scheme.

Elsewhere, I’ve told how the American revenue cutter Grant, Capt. Dorr Francis Tozier commanding, struck the rock that bears his name in lower Vancouver Island’s Saanich Inlet, near the Mill Bay ferry slip. What was the Grant doing in Saanich Inlet? Why, looking for opium smugglers. (Which goes to show that the close cooperation between Canadian and American law agencies has been with us for a long time.)

In this case, the smuggler was named Jim Jamieson and he only just got away by jettisoning his cargo, valued at $20,000 (much more then than now). Years later, Jamieson would lose more than his cargo, taking a fatal bullet while fleeing from an American treasury agent.

So here we are, a century and more later, and the war goes on. In 2003 it was reported that Vancouver had become a destination port for international cocaine smugglers. Less than a year later, it was southbound B.C. marijuana that made the news. As it continues to do so to this day, with ecstasy among other drugs.

According to the latest stats, for 2012, there’s been “a surge in human smuggling activity”–as much as 58 per cent. Some view this as a reflection of the state of the world and Canada’s vaunted reputation as a great place to live. Others think the numbers are up because of increased cross-border vigilance resulting in more arrests.

At least, making illegal immigrants ‘swim’ for their lives, bound in chains and scrap iron, or with their hands tied, appears to be a thing of the past.

Hopefully!

Update – July 2014

There’s a new kid on the block. The latest thing in contraband is illegal cigarettes, some of them smuggled in from Asia and such excellent counterfeits that Customs officers say they can hardly tell them from the real thing.

Cigarettes? Yes, perhaps as much as one in six cigarettes smoked by British Columbians could be illegal according to the results of a recent study (conducted mostly where young people hang out) commissioned by the Western Convenience Store Association. It’s of interest to them because of the lost over-the-counter revenues.

But if anyone should be concerned, it’s the B.C. Government and, by extension, the B.C. taxpayer, both of whom are losing an estimated $120 million a year in tobacco taxes. Sure, we all hate paying taxes but, as WCSA President Andrew Klukas says (Times-Colonist), “That’s a lot of money that could pay for schools and doctors and nurses.”

This isn’t just a problem in B.C., by the way; in Ontario the ratio of contraband vs. legitimate smoking goods was closer to 50-50 a few years ago. That said, B.C.’s position as Canada’s westernmost province and our proximity to Asian exporters, legal and otherwise, likely means that this province isn’t about to surrender its crown as the Canadian gateway to smugglers any time soon.

Just in…

Whoever would have thought that it would come to this? Because marijuana outlets have been legalized in Washington State, B.C.’s most profitable export is threatened!

Yes, the flood of B.C. Bud across our stretch of the 49th parallel has taken a hit since Washington residents can acquire permits to grow their own weed. Is  nothing sacred?

Mind you, it’s not quite a death sentence to cross-border trade, at least not yet, thanks to State taxes which shove up the price of the legal grass. So we’ll hold off on the eulogy and flowers just yet…