The One Suitcase Scam
Posted September 10, 2010 01:08 AM by Tommy Morghen
I thought it was time I lifted the lid on another drug smuggling scam. Here’s an example of one which, unlike most, involves only one suitcase.
A good friend of mine, June H, was renting a flat which, although she didn’t know it at the time, happened to be owned by the IRA. June was always a bit of a bohemian type who made a living doing anything from bingo-calling in Blackpool, to selling dodgy perfume, to telling fortunes – which meant she was pretty much always broke, and in arrears with the rent.
Still, June thought her landlord was ace, never hassling her, and so her arrears just kept going up and up – until one day she came home to find a group of masked men with baseball bats in the living room.
What they wanted was a little favour which would not only clear her debts, but pay for her to have a free holiday as well. All she had to do was fly to India for a couple of weeks. The night before her return a locked suitcase would be delivered to her hotel along with a set of keys.
The thing is, though, the keys wouldn’t fit the locks, so if she was stopped and asked to open it by the customs at Manchester airport, she wouldn’t be able to. Somehow she’d have made a mistake, that’s all – and she’d just have to ham it up and act a bit distraught.
But what happened was, as she was heading towards the green channel and Indian man started chasing after her shouting that she’d just walked off with his suitcase. So there she is, quite literally fighting with this bloke in the customs hall over it in front of several customs officers. And what do they do? They pile in on June’s behalf, wrestle the Indian guy to the floor, drag him away and wave her through.
“Clever,” thought June as she took a taxi back to her flat, “Those IRA guys think of everything, right down to arranging for an Indian man to make a scene at the airport, knowing full well that the racist customs officers would step in and play St George rescuing an English damsel in distress.”
But when she got home the IRA guys keys didn’t fit the locks either. Turns out she had picked up the wrong case by mistake. What’s more, when they forced it open they discovered that the owner was, I kid you not, a transvestite. No wonder he’d been making such a fuss.
