Part 18

Her baggage declaration showed she was alone. Her baggage consisted of a handbag and two suitcases of inexpensive make. The woman answered all of Koehler’s questions calmly and without nervousness. She gave no sign of apprehension when her bags were opened for examination. Yet Koehler simply could not shake a feeling that there was something wrong. Something about this woman triggered a small alarm in his subconscious.

Suddenly, Koehler realized what was bothering him. Etta Hoffman was too tall. Many tall women came through his inspection lane day after day. But Etta Hoffman’s tallness was unnatural. Her tallness was emphasized by the extraordinarily thick-soled shoes she was wearing. It simply wasn’t reasonable for a woman trying to look attractive to deliberately make herself unattractive.

Koehler quietly signalled a woman inspector, Mathilda Clark. Miss Hoffman was taken to a room set aside for questioning passengers. The soles of her shoes were hollow. When the inspectress pried them open, a handful of diamonds spilled out on the floor. Other gems were found in a false bottom of a suitcase. The diamonds weighed 3,377 carats, and were one of the largest diamond hauls ever made by Customs.

Etta Hoffman broke down in tears and poured out her story. She had dreamed for years (so she said) of coming to the United States and obtaining citizenship. She had come to Belgium as a refugee from Czechoslovakia and had succeeded at last in getting her name on the immigration quota.

After months of waiting and suspense, Etta received the necessary papers from the American Consulate. Then a strange man called at her apartment and offered to pay her fare to the United States and give her $100 in cash if she would smuggle the diamonds past Customs. He provided her with the trick shoes, the suitcase with the false bottom, and a plane ticket. Before she boarded the plane, he had given her a sealed envelope which he said contained the $100 which he had promised her.

Etta Hoffman handed the envelope, still sealed, to a Customs inspector. He tore it open and found that it contained only $80. She had been shortchanged by $20, and, to pile injury on insult, she was sentenced to eighteen months in prison.

Abraham Winnik was another of the more successful diamond and gold smugglers. This thin-faced Belgian was an expert procurer of carriers for an Antwerp syndicate. He arranged for diamonds to be brought into the United States, and after they were sold he engineered the smuggling of gold to Europe. The gold was carried in the false bottoms of suitcases fashioned by an expert leather worker in Brooklyn--who received $30 for each suitcase he altered.

One of those enlisted into Winnik’s ring of carriers was Mrs. Adele Meppen, a stocky Brooklyn housewife who gave Customs agents this story:

“I first met Abraham Winnik sometime in 1949 when he was visiting in Brooklyn. My husband and I became friendly with him, and whenever he visited this country he would come to see us at our home.

“Late in 1949 Marion Strokowski, a friend of Winnik’s, visited us. He asked me how I would like to make a trip to Europe. I told him I didn’t have the money. ‘Don’t worry about expenses,’ he said. ‘If you will do me a favor, I’ll pay your expenses. All you have to do is take two suitcases to a friend of mine.’

“I agreed and Mr. Strokowski bought my ticket. He brought two suitcases to my home which I packed with clothes. I left New York from Idlewild airport by KLM Airlines, sometime in May, 1950. When the plane reached Amsterdam, Mr. Winnik met me at the airport and drove me in his automobile to his home in Brussels.

“I stayed there for about three weeks. I met Mr. Winnik’s wife, Anna, and Mr. Strokowski’s wife, Janka. I brought back two suitcases they gave me, and a couple of days after I got home Mr. Strokowski called for them and took them away. He gave me my plane fare both ways and expenses....”

Five months after her return from this trip, Mrs. Meppen received a call from Winnik asking her to meet him in Montreal. He wanted her to “bring something into the country” for him. He said he would pay her expenses--and a little extra.

Mrs. Meppen flew to Montreal and went to the Laurentian Hotel, where she found Winnik and Janka Strokowski. They told her they wanted her to carry diamonds into the United States--and there would be no risk whatever.

Mrs. Meppen protested she didn’t want to get involved and, besides, she was scared. They convinced her there was no danger. Janka Strokowski helped her insert two rubber-covered packages into her anus.

This smuggling effort perhaps would have gone as smoothly as the others engineered by Winnik except that somewhere along the line an informer had tipped Canadian Customs officers that Winnik had entered Canada carrying a small fortune in diamonds.

Winnik had been searched when he arrived at the Gander airport in Newfoundland and Customs officers there had found nothing. But the Canadians continued to keep Winnik under surveillance and they notified the U.S. Customs of the information they had received. The American agents joined in the surveillance in Montreal.

U.S. Agents were watching when Winnik and Mrs. Strokowski placed Mrs. Meppen aboard a train enroute to New York--and two agents were on the train when it pulled from the station. At Rouses Point, on the Canadian border, Mrs. Meppen was taken from the train and searched--but the search revealed nothing.

That night Mrs. Meppen obtained a room at the Holland Hotel. The following morning when she came from her room she saw several Customs agents lounging in the lobby. They, too, were waiting for the next train to New York--no longer interested in Mrs. Meppen because the previous day’s search had been futile.

But Mrs. Meppen was frightened. She hurried to the public toilet near her room....

A few minutes after Mrs. Meppen boarded the train for New York the manager of the Holland Hotel called in a plumber to unstop a toilet in the ladies’ room. He found in the trap a rubber-covered packet stuffed with diamonds. Three days later the same toilet became stopped again. Again the plumber found a package of diamonds blocking the drain, a coincidence so unusual that the plumber became a local celebrity.

The hotel manager turned the diamonds over to Customs agents, and Mrs. Meppen was soon taken into custody for questioning. She confessed her role in the abortive smuggling effort, and a few days later Winnik was arrested as he was trying to board a plane for Amsterdam. He broke down and confessed, too.

Mrs. Meppen pleaded guilty and as a cooperative witness against Winnik was placed on probation for five years. Winnik was sent to prison for two years. Marion and Janka Strokowski were indicted, but since both were outside the jurisdiction of the United States courts, the indictments were dismissed.

The diamonds which Mrs. Meppen tried to flush down the toilet were worth $121,000.

15

A FOOL’S DREAM

From long experience U.S. Customs agents and inspectors know the methods of professional smugglers. But the non-professional smuggler is a problem, too. One of the more bizarre cases of jewelry smuggling in Customs history, involving the fabulous crown jewels of Hesse, was engineered by non-professionals. They were two lovers and their accomplice, who looked at the sparkling gems and were overwhelmed by avarice.

This plot began to unfold one cold November day in 1945 in the gray old Kronberg Castle at Wiesbaden, Germany, near Frankfurt. The castle was the home of Prince Wolfgang and the Countess Margarethe of Hesse, a daughter of Emperor Frederic of Germany and granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Britain. Now it was requisitioned as a recreation and rest center for the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The hostess in this royal setting was trim, attractive WAC Captain Kathleen Nash of Hudson, Wisconsin, a divorcee who told friends that she had gone into the WACs to “get away from it all.”

One evening there was a knock at Captain Nash’s door and Mess Sgt. Roy Carlton stepped into her room, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Captain,” the sergeant said, “there’s something I think you ought to know about. You know the old German janitor? Well, he told me a few minutes ago that when the war began, the old lady of the castle came to his house late one night and told him to come with her and to tell no one where he had gone. She took him into the basement of the castle, that little room that is used for coal storage, and told him to dig a hole in the floor. He broke through the concrete and dug a big hole in the floor and then she sent him away. But when he came back to the room several days later he found the hole had been covered with new concrete. He figures that something was buried there by the old lady.”

Captain Nash told the sergeant to bring the janitor and they would go to the basement room and investigate. They made their way down the winding stairs into the subterranean rooms of the castle to the coal room. The old janitor pointed out the spot where he had dug the hole. Captain Nash ordered him to dig into the floor and see if anything had been hidden there.

The German broke the concrete with a sledge and then began digging. He uncovered a wooden box. The box was lifted out of the hole and when the top was ripped off they saw a lead box inside. The lead box contained several packages, carefully wrapped in heavy paper, weighing about 10 pounds each.

“You had better take them to my quarters,” Captain Nash told the sergeant.

When Captain Nash opened the packages in the privacy of her quarters her eyes must have glittered with excitement. She was gazing on one of the fabulous treasures of Europe--jewelry worth at least $1,500,000, if in fact a money value could be placed on the historic items at all.

Part of the jewelry belonged to the House of the Kurfursts and to the Kurhessen Foundation. Most of it belonged to the Countess Margarethe and to Prince Wolfgang. Some of it was the personal property of Princess Christoph and Prince Richard of Hesse. The owners, who lived in less pretentious quarters at this time, rarely visited the old castle, and none was aware that the treasure had been discovered.

Captain Nash was enchanted. She took from the boxes diadems and necklaces of diamonds, pearls and amethysts; rings of diamonds and other precious stones; a diamond-studded onyx badge, made in the eighteenth century: the badge of the Order of the Garter, which had been presented by King George II to his son-in-law; necklaces of gold and platinum; bracelets of diamonds and emeralds and pearls and topaz; buckles studded with diamonds; large and small brooches studded with diamonds and other stones; pendants with large and small diamonds; earrings made of diamonds and emeralds and pearls; tiaras delicately fashioned of gold and studded with diamonds and other gems; a large necklace of gray pearls and diamonds; an English decoration of the Victoria and Albert Order, including a cameo with portrait of Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, surrounded by small diamonds; diamond stick pins; diamond earrings; diamond-studded watches; diamond studded cases; and golden chains studded with large stones.

This, then, was the treasure which the girl from Wisconsin picked up, piece by piece. At some period as she looked at the glittering jewels, the idea was born that she would not give them up.

One of the most frequent visitors to Kronberg Castle was slender, handsome Air Force Colonel Jack Durant, who was Kathleen Nash’s boy friend and constant companion. Colonel Durant had been an attorney in the U.S. government’s Interior Department before he went into the Air Force at the outbreak of the war. He was attached to the Adjutant General’s office and therefore was not unaware of the rules governing the conduct of the armed forces.

Captain Nash invited Colonel Durant and her friend, Major David Watson, to her quarters. She showed them the treasure which had been dug from the coal room in the basement of the castle. And then it was they began to talk of stealing the Hesse jewels.

These three sat behind the closed and locked door of Captain Nash’s quarters and pried the jewels from their settings. They decided it would be much easier to smuggle the loose jewels into the United States rather than leave them in their settings.

Why they thought they could escape undetected with one of the great treasures of Europe remains a mystery. It was a monstrous game of “losers weepers, finders keepers.” In their greed they began to look upon the Hesse jewels as legitimate loot. Because they were on the winning team in the war, they reasoned they were entitled to share in the spoils. If their share happened to be a fortune in gems, then that was merely their good luck.

Colonel Durant casually made inquiries among his fellow officers about the customs procedures in the United States and whether or not the inspectors of military personnel were very thorough in going through luggage.

One officer who had returned from a recent trip home said, “There’s no sweat. The inspectors clear you as fast as they can. They didn’t even look into my baggage. I guess they figure a guy who has been fighting a war should not be delayed in getting home.”

Durant persuaded a former secretary to carry home for him several pieces of the jewelry. She innocently believed they were nothing more valuable than costume jewelry which he had picked up in Europe.

Captain Nash turned over her share of the loot to Major Watson, who packed it in an ordinary wooden box and then mailed it to her in care of her sister, Mrs. Eileen Lonergan, in Hudson, Wisconsin. The box arrived in New York along with several thousands of other shipments from Europe. A Customs examiner accepted the statement on the box that it contained only personal belongings and nothing of dutiable value. And so the box went on its way to the house in Wisconsin.

Colonel Durant arrived at Westover Field by plane on March 12, 1946, aboard ATC Flight 9076, which had originated in Paris. He wrote on his customs declaration that he carried one watch worth $60, perfume worth $83, a $2.50 purse, and two cigarette lighters worth $17. He stated he had no other articles on which he should pay duty.

No one questioned the colonel’s declaration and within a short time he was on his way to Washington, D. C., to visit his brother, James E. Durant, who lived in Falls Church, Virginia.

Colonel Durant showed his brother a good many of the unset stones and articles which he had brought back from overseas, and his brother helped him remove several diamonds from two tubes of shaving cream. Durant explained that while travelling to Italy a German had sold him more than one hundred diamonds for 3,000 German marks.

Durant gave one of the diamonds to a Washington, D. C., automobile dealer--a diamond appraised at $500--as part payment for a Hudson automobile. Another automobile dealer in Falls Church, Virginia, purchased two of the diamonds for $400, and Durant--using the assumed name of J. W. Gable--disposed of three of the diamonds to a jewelry firm in Washington for $357. Then he drove to Chicago to meet Kathleen Nash.

A few days after arriving in Chicago, Colonel Durant put in a call for his friend, Dr. Reuben Mark, at the Embassy Hotel. Dr. Mark was a dentist who had struck up a friendship with Durant a few years earlier in Washington, D. C. As Dr. Mark related the story of their meeting later:

“It was around April of this year. One evening he called and he said, ‘Ruby, this is Jack.’ I said, ‘When did you get in?’ He said, ‘Just today.’ I asked him how long he was going to be in town and he said he did not know. He was on thirty days leave and he had already spent a few days.

“Then he asked when we would get together. That was on Saturday night. He said something about a girl friend of his coming in from the coast. He said it was a girl that had been overseas with him and she was a divorcee. He said she was pretty and had been married to a wealthy man in Arizona and had just joined the WACs to get away.

“We arranged to meet in a day or so. A couple of days later we met after office hours at Isbell’s restaurant on Diversey. That was the night I first met his girl. Katy, as I began to call her, was a nice girl. Nothing unusual.

“It was there that Jack asked me, ‘Ruby, do you know any jewelers?’ I said, ‘Sure, I know some jewelers.’ Just about that time he pulled out a tissue paper. He opened it up and I saw three stones. I asked, ‘Where did you get them?’ He said he picked them up overseas in Frankfurt.

“At that time nothing occurred to me about anything being wrong. I know lots of boys who brought things from overseas and I felt, well, so what, he was overseas. I said, ‘Yes, I know some jewelers.’ And he said he would like to call them. I told him I would call the following day.

“I called a Mr. Horwitz, whom I had known for some time, and I asked if he was interested in buying some diamonds. He said yes....”

Dr. Mark accompanied Durant to the jeweler’s place of business and introduced him. Durant took a small cloth sack from his pocket and when he upended it, a shower of diamonds cascaded onto the desk. There were 102 stones in the lot.

Horwitz looked at the stones under a magnifying glass, examining each of them carefully. Finally he said, “These are fine stones, Colonel. We don’t see diamonds like these very often. They’re beautifully cut.”

Durant explained he had been able to get them at a bargain price from a German badly in need of cash. “How much do you figure they are worth?” he asked.

“I’ll pay you $125 a carat,” Horwitz said. “It’s a fair price.”

“That’s okay,” Durant said. “But there’s just one thing. The deal can’t be made in my name. I’m in the Army and I’m not supposed to transact any outside business. It will have to be a cash transaction.”

Horwitz shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We only make purchases by check. In buying outside the regular channels I would have to call the police to make certain there is no violation of regulations.”

“That’s all right,” Durant said quickly. “Go ahead and call.”

Horwitz made a telephone call and then said, “The police say there’s nothing wrong with making a purchase from an Army man who has returned from overseas--provided the customs duty has been paid. Has the duty been paid on these stones?”

“I mailed them into the country,” Durant said. “All the boys were mailing stuff back and I did too.” Then Durant added, “But, look, I’m not here for business particularly. I’m going to take a trip to Mexico. If it’s only a question of duty, I’ll stop off someplace and take care of the duty part of it and I’ll see you when I get back.”

Horwitz then said to Mark, “Why don’t we make out the check in your name, Doctor? You can cash it and give the money to the colonel.”

Mark hesitated. “I suppose the check could be made out to me on a tentative basis,” he said. “But I’ll have to call my auditors and see that I don’t get fouled up with them.”

Horwitz had his secretary draw a check for the purchase of the diamonds. When Durant and the doctor had left his office, he called his lawyer. He explained the situation and asked his advice.

“There’s nothing wrong about buying diamonds from a member of the armed forces,” the lawyer said, “but you’d better be certain the diamonds were declared and duty paid on them when they were brought into the country. If they were not declared, it is not a proper transaction and I’d advise you to stop payment on the check.”

Horwitz immediately called his bank and stopped payment on the check. The following morning he called Dr. Mark and advised him of what he had done on the advice of his attorney. “I can’t go through with the transaction,” he said, “unless the colonel will produce a customs receipt showing the diamonds were declared and the duty was satisfied.”

Mark and Durant returned to Horwitz’s place of business to retrieve the diamonds and to hand back the check.

Horwitz suggested, “Why don’t you go to see Mr. Meiners at the customs house? He’s assistant collector of customs and he could clear this thing up for you. I’d even be willing to pay half of the duty.”

Durant mumbled something about having to hurry to the airport to make a flight. He said he would be back in Chicago in about ten days and he certainly would go and see Mr. Meiners at the first opportunity.

After the collapse of this deal, Durant and Captain Nash left Chicago by automobile for a vacation in the Southwest and Mexico. But even as they were leaving Chicago, Federal agents were on their trail.

The theft of the gems had been discovered by the Countess Margarethe in Germany. She had gone to the basement to check on the safety of the jewels. She had found the hole in the basement floor. The conspirators had not even refilled the hole or re-covered it with concrete. The theft was reported to Army authorities and the matter was turned over to the Army’s criminal investigation division.

The Army’s agents began questioning everyone who had been employed in any capacity at Kronberg Castle. Finally they came to the old janitor who told them of digging up the boxes in the basement coal room. He didn’t know what was in the boxes. He only knew they had been taken to Captain Nash’s quarters. He had never heard any mention of them again.

Customs agents were called in to help with the case. They traced Captain Nash’s movements from the time of her arrival in New York until she left Chicago accompanied by Colonel Durant. They learned of Durant’s visit with Dr. Mark to the jeweler, Horwitz, and the collapse of the diamond deal--because the customs duties had not been paid on the gems. But no one knew the destination of the couple when they left Chicago.

Through calls to friends and relatives, Dr. Mark located Durant in Texas--and advised him he was wanted by the Customs people for questioning. On April 19, 1946, Durant appeared at the office of the Supervising Customs Agent in Chicago with the air of an innocent man who was shocked that anyone should question his integrity.

“You did bring diamonds into the country without declaring them and without paying duty on them, didn’t you, Colonel?” an agent asked.

“Yes,” Durant said, “but I was doing only what everybody else in the armed services was doing. I didn’t know a declaration was required.”

“Where did you get the diamonds?”

“I bought them from a German civilian. I gave him my Elgin wrist watch and 3,000 German marks.”

The agent said, “How did you get them into the country?”

“I put them in a cigar box and mailed the box to myself in care of my brother in Falls Church,” Durant replied.

“Where are the diamonds now?”

Durant reached into his pocket and pulled out the sack of diamonds. “There they are,” he said, tossing the sack onto the desk. “That’s all of them.”

“We’re going to have to hold these diamonds until our investigation is completed, Colonel,” an agent said. “But of course you have the right under law to petition for a return of the diamonds and for remission or mitigation of any penalties.”

“I certainly do want to petition for their return,” Durant said angrily.

He was handed a blank petition. And he wrote: “I am the sole owner of said diamonds.... At the time I mailed these diamonds into the United States I assumed that it was not necessary for me to declare them to any governmental agency.... At no time did I intend to import into the United States and thereafter make any disposition of said diamonds in violation of any statute of the United States.... Therefore, I petition for (their return)....”