Part 1 – The Glamorous Lady in the Lustrous Chinese Gown – Canton Drug Runners of 1939

What possessed Mrs Seto Gin of Shanghai to become a drug mule in 1939? War, impoverishment, opportunity, blackmail, the chance to turn a quick buck and exit Japanese occupied Shanghai? We don’t know…but she did. In early January 1939 she was busted by U.S. Customs Agents as she stepped off the American President Lines ship the President Coolidge from Hong Kong….

In the middle to late 1930s criminal gangs in China, Hong Kong and Macao (Chinese and foreign) smuggled vast amounts of opium into America. Some went in large batches but most went in luggage – rotating Fourth Marines, showgirls heading back to America and Chinese making the crossing. Wealthy middle class Shanghainese were particularly popular with the gangs as they were not examined as closely as poorer Chinese arriving. But clearly being too glamorous also attracted the attentions of the customs men…

Here, from 1939, 32-year-old Mrs Seto Gin attracted some attention. She was busted, wearing a “lustrous Chinese gown”, “brocaded” and “slit to above the knee”, disembarking at San Francisco. She is described as “young” and “attractive” in one newspaper and “petite” and “Almond-eyed” in another. She is carrying a not inconsiderable 49 cans of opium (it was often repacked into cans claiming to contain Chinese confectionery) in, wait for it, a trunk with a false bottom – not an overly original stash spot, even in 1939. The stash was worth US$10,000 (another newspaper said US$100,000 – but that sounds a bit high for 49 5-tael cans in 1939 – valued at US$65 a tin – and I’ve seen the 10Gs reference elsewhere).

Customs quickly searched other arriving passengers but found that a Mr Chung Lei, a former Chinese bank president according to the ship’s passenger records (presumably fallen on hard times since the Japanese invasion) had already gone ashore and disappeared. As the only other passenger to have boarded in Hong Kong with Seto Gin the police announced that they would like to speak with him.

Tomorrow – The Trial…

Seto Gin…busted