CO129-502-9 Opium traffic- activities of Nemazee family 1-12-1926 - 27-10-1927 — Page 28

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Sir Edward Cook to Mr. Waterlow.

Confidential.

28

Office of the Financial Adviser,

Bangkok,

Dated 10th September 1927.

OPIUM: NAMAZIE AND OTHERS.

My dear Waterlow,

Many thanks for your letter of the 2nd September,

enclosing a copy of a letter, dated 24th March, to the

D.O.T. from the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf.

From the fact that opium, for which the Jew Elias

had received an import certificate from the Government at

Batavia, was arranged for and purchased at Bushire by

Namazie (not "Nemazee"), Colonel Haworth deduces that the

latter uses the Jewish dealers merely as covers to rig the

market.

The real facts are as follows:- Namazie is a free-

lance and stands outside the ring of Jewish and Armenian

dealers. He is a British Indian subject by domicile but

a Persian by race. He has intimate connections with the

Persian dealers at Bushire and can nearly always "get in

first". On more than one occasion, when the Jewish dealers

have received orders for opium, they have found, on wiring

to Bushire to make purchases, that Namasie had worked the

market against them and, in order to fulfil their contracts

with the purchasing Governments, they have had, much to

their annoyance, to buy opium from him, 1.e. to give him

a good share of their own profit. They do not love him.

The events of February last, referred to by Colonel Haworth,

evidently relate to one of these transactions.

Naturally