CRIME: Coffins and Corruptions

The literature of the illicit narcotics trade bristles with tales of perniciously ingenious capers and official corruption. It will probably be a long time, however, before any new chapters can top the two now unfolding. In one case, it is believed that traffickers used the bodies and caskets of American servicemen to smuggle drugs into the U.S. from Southeast Asia. In the second, huge quantities of heroin confiscated by the New York police department were systematically stolen, put back into the street trade, and may now be a source of horse for the holidays. Herewith reports on the two cases:

Grisly Smuggling

It looked like a routine flight home from Southeast Asia with a stop at Hickam Field, Hawaii, before the final leg to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Aboard the KC-135 were 64 passengers, many of them G.I.s, and two military coffins. Suddenly, the plane was ordered to reroute slightly and land at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. There federal authorities, acting on a tip that 20 kilos of heroin were aboard, virtually took the transport apart. They did not find any drugs, but they did discover that one of the two bodies, which had undergone autopsy earlier, had recently been restitched.

The agents arrested Thomas Edward Southerland, 31, of Castle Hayne, N.C., who was dressed in the uniform of a U.S. Army sergeant. Southerland, who falsely claimed he had served a twelve-year hitch in the Army, was arrested on charges of impersonation and using fake documents.

Southerland was arraigned in U.S. district court in Baltimore and held in lieu of $50,000 bail. That seemed pretty stiff for the formal charges, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael E. Marr made the bail stick by convincing a district court last week that Southerland was an “incredibly high bail risk.” The reason: federal authorities believe that Southerland is an operative in an international ring that allegedly has been smuggling millions of dollars worth of heroin into the U.S. over the past eight years. The principal modus transportati, investigators contend, is G.I. cadavers.

The grisly logistics are not as difficult as they may appear to be. Smugglers with access to military facilities apparently have managed to sew the heroin into the corpses in Southeast Asia. While the body count is low these days, it only takes a few to bring in a sizable cache of drugs. The smugglers can do this—as well as travel back and forth at will—by dint of counterfeit credentials. On this flight the heroin was presumably removed at Hickam Field, where many military transports from Indochina stop for 16 to 24 hours before proceeding to the mainland. The planes there are under minimal guard.

Since there are no customs inspections, this is relatively easy. Authorities estimate that the ring buys the drug in Southeast Asia for $1,700 a kilo and resells it in the States for up to $250,000. A full-scale investigation is under way both in the U.S. and in Southeast Asia. If it bears out these suspicions, the nation—already battered by the sorry conflict—will find itself face to face with the most vicious case of war-profiteering in its history.

Missing Evidence

If the thefts from the New York City police department’s supposedly secure evidence stacks continue at the present rate, there will soon be nothing left to guard. Two weeks ago, Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy announced that 57 lbs. of heroin confiscated in the famous 1962 “French Connection” case were missing from the property-storage room. The following day it was discovered that an additional 24 lbs. were lost. Then last week the abashed commissioner learned that another 88 lbs. of heroin and 131 lbs. of cocaine had been stolen from the police department. Still more losses are expected to be discovered, including narcotics, cash, jewels and furs.

Murphy was predictably outraged. Said he: “This is, without a doubt, the worst instance of police corruption I have uncovered. I am determined not to rest until the last vestiges of this problem have been rooted out.” That is going to take some big-time rooting, since there is obviously more to all of this than a couple of dishonest clerks dipping their hands in the till. TIME has learned that two Mafia families—those of Carlo Gambino and Joe Bonanno —were involved. The Gambinos set up the looting, authorities say, and have already pushed 169 lbs. of the stolen drugs in Harlem. The going price: around $100,000 per pound.

Thus far the only suspected police link that has surfaced is Narcotics Detective Joseph Nunziata, whose signature—probably forged—was on the form with which 24 lbs. were signed out. Nunziata died of gunshot wounds inflicted by his own revolver last March. The death was labeled a suicide, but that verdict was challenged by Nunziata’s widow Anna and her attorney, John Meglio, who said: “Joe wasn’t the kind of man who would commit suicide.” Indeed, mob sources have been saying that Nunziata’s death was a “hit,” ordered by the Gambinos because they feared the detective might talk about the heroin thefts.

Why didn’t the police destroy the heroin and cocaine caches? The bureaucratic answer is that evidence must be kept while there is any chance of legal appeals or additional prosecutions in a case. Still, it would seem that the possession of such valuable and tempting evidence as hard drugs called for the most stringent security measures. The property clerk’s office is a midden of paper and confusion, where tons of pieces of evidence are stored under the casual supervision of an understaffed force. Incredibly, no inventory of confiscated goods has ever been made.

All too belatedly, Murphy assigned a 200-man task force to make a full inventory of all narcotics supposed to be in police possession. That, of course, will take weeks. Also, it is doubtful that a mere inventory will do much to get at the inside source of the thefts. One item the cops probably will not find is the clothing worn by Nunziata when he died. Meglio sought the garments as evidence in challenging the suicide ruling, but they turned out to be missing from the property room.