CRIME: Opium and Morphine

If it is any honor to be described by the League of Nations as “an international menace,” then Yasha Katzenberg, 50, is an honorable man. The League so described him last year when U. S. delegates to its committee on narcotics control complained that Japan was supplying Katzenberg’s agents with opium and morphine in China for smuggling into the U. S. His dope ring, built up after Repeal spoiled a fine livelihood for him, was reputed to be on a $10,000,000 scale. When Rumania threw him out this year, he was seized in Greece, extradited to the U. S. Last week in Federal court, Manhattan, Yasha Katzenberg ceased being a menace. He broke down and begged Judge Henry W. Goddard for mercy. Judge Goddard gave him ten years, $10,000 fine. To John McAdams, a Customs sergeant through whom Katzenberg used to pass huge shipments of dope into New York, the same judge last fortnight gave seven years for bribe-taking.