Part 57

On the basis of this information, which was supported by names, places and dates, the Service opened a formal investigation. Agents sifted through thousands of declarations, seeking the names of the carriers for Battaglia and Guarna, and the names of the inspectors who had signed the suspect declarations.

A study of the declarations convinced the agents that Lev’s name appeared far too frequently on the documents relating to the partners’ travels. And there were too few imports recorded for a firm as obviously prosperous as Battaglia & Guarna, which dealt exclusively in foreign haberdashery.

This investigation was underway when Guarna left for Europe in July. By mid-August, Cardoza had decided the time had come to crack down on the partners--and the best time would be when Guarna returned from the Italian trip. He was reasonably certain that if Guarna were engaged in smuggling, he would return from Italy with a load of merchandise which he would try to slip through Customs. For this reason it was important to know when and how Guarna planned to return to the United States.

The time of Guarna’s return was learned by a telephone call to the office of Battaglia & Guarna, where a secretary--told that an old friend from Chicago was calling--disclosed that Guarna was due to return on October 1 aboard the Italian liner Cristoforo Colombo.

With more than a month in which to set his trap, Cardoza began making plans to keep Guarna within sight of a Customs agent from the time he set foot on the pier until he cleared his baggage with an inspector. But this surveillance had to be done in such a manner that it would not arouse the suspicion of Lev or any other inspector who might be involved in the smuggling.

Finally, it was decided to use a “zone defense,” in which three agents would be stationed at strategic points commanding a view of the pier and the baggage examination area. No one was to leave his post and follow Guarna or show any undue interest in his movements. One out-of-town agent--unknown to any of the inspectors--was to be stationed on the pier under the baggage collection point “G” in the role of a visitor come to meet one of the passengers.

In September, the agents made a “dry run” of the zone defense to acquaint themselves with their posts. On October 1, they put the plan into operation.

Mario Cozzi, a chunky young man especially adept at surveillance, was sent down the Bay with the Customs boarding party to seek out Guarna in order that he could be pointed out to the other agents when he came ashore. None of them knew him by sight.

Cozzi was wandering about the ship wondering how to locate Guarna without arousing suspicion when he got an unexpected break. Cozzi saw the Italian Line’s agent, Angelo Cappa, standing by the ship’s rail talking to a well-dressed, middle-aged passenger. Cappa called him over and said, “Mario, I want you to meet Mr. Guarna, who is returning from Italy. Mr. Guarna, this is Mr. Cozzi.”

Cozzi shook hands with Guarna and then hastily excused himself, saying he had work to do before the ship docked. From that moment he remained close to Guarna, and when the merchant walked down the gangplank, Cozzi discreetly pointed him out to the waiting agents.

Guarna hurried to the collection point “G” and paid little attention to the man who was standing under the sign holding a visitor’s pass in his hand. He would have been intensely interested had he known the stranger was Agent Melvin Huffman.

Inspector Lev walked up and shook hands with Guarna. And then he turned to Huffman and said brusquely, “Do you have permission to be on the pier?”

Huffman handed over his pass and said amiably, “I’m waiting for a friend--Mr. Gardiner. He’s supposed to be on the Colombo and he asked me to meet him here.”

Lev examined the pass and then handed it back, satisfied that Huffman was only a visitor. He said, “It’s all right. Mr. Gardiner should be along soon.”

Lev then called over another inspector and whispered in his ear. The inspector nodded and shook hands with Guarna. He quickly examined four small pieces of luggage and then he pasted clearance stickers on a half-dozen large trunks without opening them.

This operation was witnessed by Huffman and also by Agent Carl Esposito, who was watching from a nearby telephone booth. The examination was in violation of orders, because the inspectors had been instructed that morning to make a thorough examination of all baggage. None was to be cleared without inspection.

As Guarna’s baggage was being taken to a platform to be loaded onto a truck, Cardoza walked over to the telephone booth where Esposito sat.

“That’s a lot of baggage,” Cardoza said. “We’ll have to hire a truck to get it to the office.”

Esposito grinned maliciously. “Why don’t we wait,” he said, “and let Guarna hire his own truck. Then he’ll have to pay the bill.”

“Why not?” Cardoza said.

Porters were preparing to heave the trunks onto a truck at the loading station when Cardoza and Esposito approached Guarna. They identified themselves as Customs agents and asked to see the contents of the trunks.

Guarna said nothing. Perhaps he was too frightened to speak. He merely took several keys from his pocket and began unlocking the trunks. When the agents raised the lids, they saw that each was packed with expensive men’s haberdashery which had not been declared.

Guarna and Battaglia talked readily. They identified the inspectors who had helped them in their smuggling. When agents completed their examination of the partners’ books, they were able to prove that over a period of two and a half years, the two men and their accomplices had smuggled into the United States merchandise with a wholesale value of $147,613--and they had avoided payment of duties totalling some $56,600. They had paid out $6,000 to various inspectors, of which the lion’s share--about $5,000--went to Lev.

Battaglia and Guarna were convicted and fined $10,000 and $5,000 respectively, and placed on five years’ probation. Inspector Lev was fined $2,500 and sentenced to three years in prison, along with Inspector Danis. Six other inspectors were dishonorably discharged from the service.

THE INNOCENTS

Betty Warren and Harriet Davis--trim and attractive in their U.S. Army nurses’ uniforms--were wide-eyed with excitement as they looked from the window of the airliner and saw Hong Kong for the first time. The clouds hung low over the peaks of the island jutting from the sea at the edge of Red China. In the harbor they saw great luxury liners at anchor alongside battered old freighters from the four corners of the earth. The harbor was alive with Chinese junks and sampans.

Their excitement grew no less as the plane landed and a bus carried them into the bustle of Kowloon to the Grand Hotel. The hotel would be their headquarters for several days of sightseeing and shopping before they returned to their posts at Yokosuka Army Hospital, and the end of a vacation tour which had included Manila, Calcutta and Bangkok. It was one of the standard tours arranged by the military for personnel stationed in Japan and other Far Eastern bases. And Betty and Harriet, both lieutenants, were only two among the hundreds who made the circuit each year.

Before leaving Yokosuka, a fellow nurse had told them: “When you get to Hong Kong, be sure to look up Mr. Chu in the Miramar Hotel arcade. He’s terribly nice--and honest. He can tell you where to buy things at the cheapest prices and he’ll show you around Hong Kong. He gets a commission on anything you buy--but it’s worth it.”