CO129-483 - Others & Individuals - 1923 — Page 69

MINUTES.

MINUTES NOT TO BE WRITTE

1

ON THIS SIDE.

Any reply to this Letter

be addressed :-

"The Secretary,

Custom House,

. London, E.C. 8,"

not to any particular The following

should be quoted:-

M. 32941/1923

to comply with

Prœctions may intoler

C.0

30969

RECY

REC 21 JUN 23

65 WI

CUSTOM HOUSE, LONDON, E.C. 3.

20th June, 1923,

For 24098

Sir,

In reply to your letter of the 30th ultimo, (24098/23) I am directed by the Board of Customs and Excise to offer the following observations in regard to their practice in granting rewards to informers etc. in connection with the detection of smuggling offences.

2. The regulations referred to in the second paragraph of your letter are still in force. No reward may be paid by any person under the rank of a Collector, and where a reward is payable to an informer it must be authorised by the Commissioners. In any case where the Commissioners consider that a reward in excess of £50 would be justifed, the matter must be submitted to the Treasury. No private agreement as to sharing rewards may be made between Officera and informers.

3. Payment of rewards to informers by Senior Officers does not necessitate personal interviews between the informers and the officers, as the paymente may be made through the post. The informer's receipt would properly be given in the name in which the information was given, which would not necessarily be the name by which the informer is known to his associates. If necessary, the receipt is kept under seal,

4. The Commissioners employ a Special Inquiry Staff at their Head Office to deal with exceptional frauds on the Customs and Excise revenue, with a specially trained and Senior Official at its head. The obtaining of information in specially important cases is to a large extent carried out by this Staff, and their experience enables them to secure the information, to obtain the necessary receipts etc, without any possibility of the informer's identity becoming generally known. In other special cases where the information is not given to the Commissioners' Officers direct but through the Police, the Commissioners may authorise the reward to be paid through the Chief Constable, and, if necessary, may accept the Chief Constable's receipt.

5. As regards paragraphe 5 and 6 of the Despatch from the Governor of Hong Kong, the Commissioners do not grant rewards to their officers for detections of contraband made in the course of their ordinary routine work, e.g. in the examination of cargo in the usual way. Where, however, the detection of contraband in cargo is the result of detective work requiring special initiative, the Commissioners allow an application for a special reward to be submitted.

In regard to other duties, e.g. the discovery of contraband on the persons or in the personal effects of crews or passengers, the Commissioners authorise rewards (which are now payable at the following scale) on the ground that this Work requires some degree of initiative, etc M

147678) Wt. 20112/36 Gp. 140 60,000 11-22 W & S LL

at are wih 7

(a)