8TEST TUBE DETECTIVES

8TEST TUBE DETECTIVES

Shortly before World War II, a rusted old freighter slid into its berth at a Baltimore pier, completing its long voyage from the Orient. Customs officers boarded the vessel to check the manifest, verify the cargo, and search for contraband. The search was the routine sort of thing that occurred every day at every major port in the United States.

An inspector hurried to the quarters of the crew members and began his rounds. He encountered nothing unusual until he reached one crewman’s cabin and found the door locked. He knocked on the door and a muffled voice said, “Who is it?”

“This is the Customs inspector,” the officer said. “Open up.”

The door opened and a seaman said gruffly, “There’s nothing in here. You’ll find everything on my declaration.” He was a slender, middle-aged man with thinning hair and tattoos on his forearms.

“It’s a routine check,” the inspector said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

The seaman made no move to stand aside. “I told you there’s nothing in here,” he insisted.

“Look, Mac,” the inspector snapped, “you’ve been through this sort of thing before and you know it’s got to be done. So let me get at it.” He pushed his way into the cabin.

On a table he saw a hypodermic needle. He picked it up and turned to the seaman. “Are you a junkie?” he asked. “Have you got any narcotics?”

The seaman’s face reddened with anger. “Hell, no! I wouldn’t touch the stuff.”

The inspector wasn’t impressed with the denial. That’s what they all said until you found their supply of narcotics.

When he started to open a locker, the crewman said, “It’s empty. I’ve already taken everything out.”

The inspector looked at the man’s hands shake as he lit a cigarette. “Why don’t you sit down and take it easy, mister?” he said. “I’ve just decided to take a good look around.”

Slowly he went over the cabin. At last he pulled the locker away from the bulkhead and saw a small cotton bag taped to the back of the locker. He yanked it loose and held it out toward the seaman. “What is this?”

The seaman made a grab for the bag. “Give that to me!” he said. “It’s nothing that interests you.”

The inspector opened the bag and saw that it contained a white powder which looked suspiciously like heroin. He said, “Mister, if this is heroin, you are in trouble.”

“It’s not heroin,” the seaman said sullenly.

“If it isn’t heroin,” the inspector said, “then what is it? Why did you hide it behind the locker? What are you trying to hide?” But the seaman remained silent.

The inspector said, “You are not to leave this ship until I have an analysis made of this powder. Do you understand?”

The seaman nodded. The inspector left the cabin and went tothe captain to explain the situation. He requested the seaman be detained on the freighter pending a chemical test of the powder.

“It looks like heroin,” the inspector said. “If it is, we’ll have to take him into custody.”

“How long will it take to make the test?” the skipper asked. “We’re sailing tomorrow afternoon. If this man is in trouble, I’ll have to take on another seaman.”

“We should know the results before you sail,” the inspector said. “I’ll be in touch with you.”

The sack of powder was sent to the Baltimore Customs laboratory with an urgent request for a quick test. It was turned over to tall, lanky Edward Kenney, who had received his training as a chemist at the University of Maine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University. Kenney was among the small group of men and women who had found the Customs laboratories to be a daily adventure in solving riddles posed by the legal necessity of identifying and classifying a bewildering variety of imports which poured into the United States daily from all parts of the world.

The analysis of the powder taken from the seaman was one of the routine chores which posed no problem for Kenney. The test for heroin was negative—and he sent his findings to the chief chemist to be relayed to the inspector on the case.

A few minutes later, Kenney received a telephone call from the inspector. “Mr. Kenney,” he said, “I just can’t believe that report you made on the powder I seized from the seaman. If ever I saw a guilty man, this one is guilty. Would you mind running another test?”

“I’m sure the report was correct,” Kenney said, “but if it will make you feel better, I’ll make another test. Would you like to come over and watch?”

“I certainly would,” the inspector said.

When the inspector arrived at the laboratory, Kenney took a sampling from the powder and placed it in a glass container. Then he picked up a bottle of liquid from a cabinet.

“This liquid is a mixture of sulphuric acid and formaldehyde,” he explained. “I’m going to make a Marquis test. It’s named after the man who invented it long before either you or I were born. Nobody seems to know much about Marquis, but he knew what hewas doing. He found that when you add this liquid to an opium narcotic powder, the powder will show purple discoloration. Now watch.”

Kenney poured a few drops of the liquid onto the powder to dissolve it. But there was no indication of a purple color.

“Is that test conclusive?” the inspector asked.

“No, not necessarily,” Kenney said. “There are some impurities which could produce a purple discoloration. Let’s see if we can isolate any opium with another test.” But when an effort was made to extract opium from the powder with an infallible procedure, the result was negative. The powder beyond doubt did not contain narcotics.

“Well,” Kenney said, “that’s it. Your seamen wasn’t smuggling narcotics.”

The inspector said, “I know you’re right but I was certain I had grabbed a sack of heroin. What is the stuff in the sack?”

Kenney said, “I don’t know, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch. I’ll run another test and let you know the results.”

When Kenney completed his testing the following morning, he called the inspector. “Your man was carrying saccharine,” he said.

The inspector returned to the ship to have the seaman freed from detention and to question him further. “The powder wasn’t heroin,” he said. “It was saccharine. I’d like to know one thing. Why did you make such a big mystery of it?”

The seaman at last disclosed that he was a diabetic—and that for months he had kept this fact from his shipmates and from the ship’s officers. He gave himself insulin shots secretly and used saccharine instead of sugar in his coffee. He had been fearful that if anyone aboard the ship learned he was a diabetic, he would be barred from going to sea—a fear which he was to learn was entirely groundless.

When the inspector met Kenney later, he said, “I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble for nothing. The whole thing was a waste of time.”

Kenney shook his head in disagreement. “I don’t think it was a waste of time at all,” he said. “We proved the seaman was innocent of smuggling narcotics and we helped him get rid of an unreasonable fear. As I see it, the results were pretty good.”

The case of the diabetic seaman is only one of many strange cases which find their way to the Customs Bureau’s laboratories located in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Savannah, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Thousands of items, from yak hair to heroin, come to the chemists to be sampled, tested and identified.

In the course of a day, a laboratory may be called on to identify and determine the amount of grease and dirt that is in a shipment of Australian wool; report the percentage of tungsten in a shipment of ore; determine the antiquity of a diamond-studded tiara; test the alcoholic content of Scotch whiskey; examine a rosary case made in Japan, in order to establish its chief component; and analyze a sample of powdered milk from Holland to measure its butter fat.

Or the laboratory may be called on to analyze a shipment of mica to determine whether the mica splittings measure more or less than .0012 inches in thickness. The measurement of the mica has a dollars-and-cents importance to the shipper, the importer and the government because the duty is based on the thickness of the mica splittings, which in turn affects the market value of the import.

No laboratories in all the world have a more varied job to do than those of Customs. Every article that is known to commerce reaches these laboratories at one time or another. The examinations are necessary because only by a precise determination of the contents of many shipments are the appraiser and the collector able to establish value and thus determine the rate of duty which is to be paid into the Treasury of the United States.

The scientists never know when one of their analyses will touch off a court battle which will involve an entire industry and which may mean a difference of millions of dollars to businessmen.

Such a case occurred several years ago when one of the Bureau’s laboratories received for analysis a sample of a product imported from Canada under the trade name “Lioxin.” This product had a great many industrial uses and was competitive with vanillin, which is derived from the vanilla bean and also from coal tar. The imported product was being offered on the market at a price considerably below that of the competing vanillin product—at a price so low, in fact, that it threatened to upset the entire vanillin trade.

The discovery of Lioxin had been one of those accidents of science in which a waste product is found to be extremely valuable. A wood pulp company was dumping waste matter into a nearby stream, and sportsmen complained that it was killing all the fish. The complaints became so numerous that the company called in a scientist to see what could be done about correcting the situation. The scientist found while experimenting with certain chemical compounds that he could convert the waste matter into a substance that was 96 to 97 per cent vanillin. And it could be done much more cheaply than extracting vanillin from the vanilla bean or from coal tar.

When Customs chemists analyzed the product, they found that it contained impurities—but the impurities could be removed quite easily and cheaply. The end product was almost pure vanillin, meeting all the rigid standards set up by the U.S. Pharmacopoeia Act.

The result of the laboratory findings was a decision to classify Lioxin as vanillin, dutiable at $2.25 per pound based on the American selling price. The duty brought the price of the import into line with the competing American product.

The Bureau’s decision was protested by the importer. The claim was made that the compound was not vanillin under the terms of the Tariff Act. It was argued that when Congress passed the law setting the duty on vanillin, the lawmakers had in mind the vanillin which came from the vanilla bean and from coal tar.

However, the courts held that the import was only “one step short of the finished product” and that when the impurities were removed in a very simple process, then the end product was a vanillin conforming to the standards of the U.S.P. As such, it was held to be subject to the same tariff payment as other vanillin imports.

The case of the synthetic vanillin explains in a large measure why the turnover among scientists and technicians in the Customs laboratories is among the lowest in the entire Federal government. A day rarely passes in which they are not presented with a new and challenging problem—not unlike the solving of a mystery. There simply is no time to become bored.

Frequently these men must devise their own methods of examination and establish their own standards for a product simply because there is nothing in the book which they can use as aguide. Many new products have come into the markets in the past few years—particularly in the field of chemicals—which are not provided for in the law except in a vague, catch-all phrase “and not specially provided for.”

The laboratories never know what to expect next. This was the case when the New York laboratory received a sample of a shipment of artificial Christmas trees resembling small pine trees. The examiners at the pier who first inspected the trees were baffled as to how they should be classified and what the rate of duty on them should be. The trees were made from materials which the examiners could not identify. And identification had to be made before a rate of duty could be fixed.

One of the trees was sent to the Customs laboratory on Varick Street, where it was taken apart piece by piece. It was found that the base was made from pasteboard. The trunk was fashioned of wire and the bark from paper. But the artificial pine needles were discovered to be dyed goose feathers. Since the law holds that the duty must be paid on the “component material of chief value”—then the Christmas tree’s actual chief value was in the dyed goose feathers. Dyed goose feathers called for a duty of 20 per cent of their value on the market.

Frequently the laboratory workers find themselves in the role of a Sherlock Holmes—using their test tubes and their spectrometers and their diffractometers as tools to help track down criminals.

One day an employee on the New York piers noticed that an automobile which was to be loaded aboard a ship for Europe seemed to be heavier in the rear than in the front. The car was setting too low on its rear springs, although there was nothing in the trunk of the car to put any undue weight on the springs.

This fact was called to the attention of Customs officers, and they decided to examine the car. They went over it carefully and finally discovered a section behind the rear seat which appeared to have been tampered with. There were scratches on the metal which seemed to have been made only recently. A further examination disclosed a secret compartment built into the car, and when this was pried open, it was found to contain about $30,000 worth of gold bars. They were being smuggled out of the country.

The bars were taken to the New York laboratory for examination.There seemed to be no way to identify them because the serial numbers—which are stamped into each bar of gold and recorded by the government—had been hacked and gouged from the soft metal. But the laboratory discovered a method—still secret—by which they were able to read the numbers on each of the bars. This information was turned over to the Secret Service, and Secret Service agents were able to track down the man who had made the original purchase of the bars.

Part of the laboratories’ job is to watch for improper classification of imports by shippers who hope to slip them into the country under a lower rate of duty than the Tariff Act provides for. As aids in this work the chemists have spectrographs (used for the most part in analyzing metals), X-ray diffractometers, electrolytic machines and other instruments enabling them to break down and identify the component parts of materials brought into the country.

By use of the diffractometer and X-ray, the laboratories have been able to determine in innumerable cases that shipments have been improperly classified by the shippers either intentionally or unintentionally. At any rate, the shipments have been uniformly reclassified at higher rates of duty, saving the U.S. Treasury many thousands of dollars.

There is one case on record in which a diffractometer was credited with reversing a court decision. Before the diffractometer was installed in the New York laboratory, an importer brought into the country a shipment of material which he listed as duty-free zirconium oxide. A chemical analysis, while not very convincing, showed that the material was not zirconium oxide. But the method of testing was such that the importer successfully challenged the Customs finding and the Customs court ruled that the material should be admitted as zirconium oxide, free of duty.

However, the laboratory was not finished with this case. Soon after this decision a diffractometer was installed in the laboratory. Another analysis of the material was made. And the diffractometer revealed beyond the shadow of doubt that the material was not what the importer claimed. The crystals in the material showed that it was stabilized zirconium oxide, dutiable at 15 per cent of its value, rather than ordinary zirconium oxide, free of any duty. The result was that the diffractometer’s findings were accepted bythe court and the original ruling in favor of the importer was reversed.

Sometimes the secretiveness of shippers poses an unusual problem. Such was the case when a Swedish manufacturer of homogenized ham-and-cheese spread decided to send his product into the American market. He would not disclose to Customs the recipe for this spread—obviously feeling that his trade secret might fall into the hands of a competitor.

Customs chemists were given the job of determining which of the materials in the spread was the major dutiable material. It was a tricky problem because both ham and cheese are of animal origin and consist of protein and fats. After two weeks the laboratory was able to report that the Swedish manufacturer’s product was primarily ham. Then there was no problem in fixing the tariff rate.

New York is the largest of the laboratories and tests about one-fourth of more than 120,000 samples which are examined each year. Boston is the next largest, and then comes New Orleans. Over the years each laboratory has become a specialist in certain examinations. Most of the wool entering the United States is examined in Boston. Chicago leads in the examinations of samples of ore, grain, and metals. New York does the great majority of testing of dyestuffs; and New Orleans has become a major center in the examination of narcotics, because of its geographic location near the Mexican border.

The laboratories are constantly seeking new and better ways of testing materials. A notable achievement in this field was made by Melvin Lerner, now the chief chemist in the Baltimore laboratory, when he developed an entirely new method for determining, easily and accurately, the opium content of any materials, in addition to identifying prohibited synthetic narcotics.

The process involves dissolving a small amount of the suspected powder in a mixture of trichloroethane, chloroform, nitric acid and phosphoric acid. If no heroin is present, the liquid will be colorless or have an apple-green hue. But if heroin is present, the liquid will range in color from light yellow to yellowish brown—the darker color indicating the powder is almost 100 per cent pure heroin. Distinctive coloring is produced also by the synthetics.

The Lerner test for identifying prohibited synthetic narcotics has created world-wide interest. Virtually every country in theworld has written to the Customs Bureau requesting information on this process and asking for one of the small field kits with which the tests can be made.

Frequently the laboratories are able to give invaluable help to importers in protecting them from fraud and sometimes saving them from embarrassment. There was one case in which a curator of a museum vouched for the antiquity of a tapestry which he had imported for the museum from Europe. As an antiquity—that is, an article made before 1830—it would not have been subject to any tariff duty. The curator was quite insistent about the age of the tapestry. But laboratory experts discovered that the tapestry’s threads had been stained with coal tar dyes. Since coal tar dyes were not used before 1857, the tapestry obviously was not an antiquity. The curator was embarrassed over being proved wrong, but nevertheless he was grateful that the discovery had been made before the tapestry was hung in the museum.

In another case the laboratory experts were able to set at ease the mind of an importer of an extremely valuable gold, diamond, and ruby tiara which had been purchased as a museum piece. Even though the tiara was known to be very old, it was suspected that the piece had undergone major repairs. If this were true, it meant that duty would have to be paid on any substantial repairs to the import.

The tiara was taken to the New York laboratory. A chemist rubbed the tiara lightly with a very fine sandpaper to remove a few flecks of gold. These flecks were then analyzed by a spectrograph, which revealed that the gold contained the impurities commonly found in gold refined by antique methods. There was no need for the payment of any duty on the tiara.

The laboratory experts work in close cooperation with the Bureau’s enforcement division, and they never know when they may be called upon to don their detective hats. There was one case in which it was suspected that cattle were being smuggled from Canada into upper New York State. The laboratory supplied agents with a certain chemical which they took into Canada and, with the cooperation of Canadian law enforcement officers, secretly smeared on herds of cattle in the area where the smuggling had been taking place. When the chemical dried on the cattle, it left no visible trace.

Later the agents smeared a second chemical on cattle which were suspected of having been smuggled into New York State. No sooner was this done than large red blotches appeared on the cattle—irrefutable evidence that these animals had been smuggled in from Canada. This may have been the first time that science got into the business of combatting cattle rustling.

The Customs laboratories trace their beginning to 1848, when Congress wrote into law a requirement that Customs should examine all drugs, medicines, medicinal preparations, and chemical preparations used as medicine to determine their quality and purity. Standards of strength and purity were established. The analyzing was farmed out to chemists in commercial firms or to pharmacists and physicians.

Although this law was passed in 1848, it was not until 1880 that the Customs Bureau was authorized to employ its own chemist. By this time there was imperative need for more laboratory work to aid the Customs appraisers.

In the early 1880s the Bureau first began using instruments such as the polariscope to determine the actual strength of sugar being imported.

Old records show that chemists were added to the Customs staff at New York and San Francisco between 1880 and 1890. A Customs laboratory was established in Philadelphia in 1892 and in San Francisco in 1899. Despite the obvious value of their work, the chemists were not regarded very highly in the government service, and until 1910 their salaries were $1,200 a year—the same as that received by an ordinary clerk.

As the tariff laws became more complex, the work in the laboratories increased correspondingly. For example, the Tariff Act of 1922 fixed duties on the components of certain imports, such as the amount of calcium fluoride in fluorspar and the amount of silica in glass sand and ferro alloys. Congress also defined in the Tariff Act items such as vinegar, cellulose compounds, hardened and vegetable oils, molasses and sirups. Other laws called for duties on copper, fatty acids, soaps and petroleum. The passage of the laws required scientific analyses of shipments to obtain a precise determination of their dutiable contents.

Until 1936 the laboratories throughout the country operated more or less independently of each other with only a loose systemof cooperation between them. But in 1936 a Division of Laboratories was established within the Bureau to direct operations and to fix uniform procedures throughout the service.

In 1953, the then Commissioner of Customs, Ralph Kelly, expanded the duties of the Division of Laboratories and changed its name to the Division of Technical Services. The Division, now located at the Customs Bureau headquarters in Washington, directs the operations of Customs laboratories; furnishes to the Commissioner information on engineering, chemical, statistical, and other scientific and technical developments; plans and standardizes sampling, weighing, and testing standards and procedures; inspects the laboratories; and furnishes any needed engineering services.

This division, under the direction of Dr. George Vlasses, is the smallest of the seven administrative divisions in the Customs Bureau, with only seven employees. In all, the laboratories have a total of 136 employees, of which 76 are chemists. The balance are physical science aides, laboratory helpers, and administrative and clerical employees.

Even though these men and women cannot take people’s motives apart and test them, the relative purity of their motives often is revealed quite clearly to these test-tube detectives.

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