The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-08-10
Swedish "Rubber Baron" Tells
How He Profited by Trad
ing on Frontier.
WAS CLERK BEFORE THE WAR
Made His First Money Dealing In
Russian Rubles-Then Engages in
Smuggling Rubber From Fin
land and Gets Rich Quickly.

know what people smuggle? 60 up
the river then, and you will soon find
out. They smuggle nearly everything,
so it is rather difficult to answer the
question offhand." So said a custom
house officer at Haparanda, the little
Swedish town on the frontier of Fin
land, to Herbert Ericsson, a Swedish
writer, who went up the Tornea valley
to investigate the smuggling stories.
"While l was waiting for the Over
Tornea train to start, a motorcycle
chugged into the station yard" said
Ericsson.
"That is one of our rubber barons,"
remarked an acquaintance to me. A
rubber baron, in Haparanda talk, is
a man who suddenly gets rich on
smuggling rubber in from Finland. ]
was in luck, for the baron-Karlsson
/ will call him-traveled north in my
compartment. He was a pleasant fell
low. He did not remind me of the
smart spectators I had met in Norr-
land. He even looked embarrassed
when I began to talk about smuggling.
Clerk Before the War.
"Presently he told me that at the
outbreak of the war he had been a
clerk in one of Norrland's coast towns.
He had earned his money in rubles.
at is not generally known that
many hundred Swedes have made big
like this: After the occupation of
Poland and other regions of Russia,
the Germans found that the population
refused to take marks in payment for
such supplies as were paid for. The
people demanded rubles, and rubles
the Germans did not have. The only
way of getting them was through
Sweden. The Russian government
permitted no more than 500 to be TAX
en- out of the government by each
traveller, but with the incentive of a
good reward smugglers were not lack
ing. The Haparanda agents bought
up these rubles and sent them down
to Germany by bales.
"When the Germans had bought all
the rubles they wanted Karlsson tried
to smuggle drugs to Finland. That
failed absolutely. He met with a dis
aster at the outset. His first consign-
ment of several kilos of acetylsalicy-
lie acid and 100 clinical thermometers
was seized by the Swedish customs au-
thorities and a heavy fine was i'm
posed.
$50 he got. into touch with some
Finnish merchants who, for a price,
rr.,a 40 ,+a0I %1 Ia-1- Iax.o o-,axfs4xV
of rubber rings on the Swedish side of
the river at a certain minute on a GER
tain day.
Entering into relations with a firm
in Stockholm and finding that he could
make many thousand kroner profit
thereby, Karlsson told the Firms to go
ahead. One night he went to Mattila,
where the rubber was to be ready.
Mattila is a tiny station on the Hap
aranda- Over-Tornea stretch of rail-
way, and almost on the bank of the
river.
No Sign Of Customs Officer.
"When he arrived there was no sign
of a Russian custom house officer
across stream. The revolution has al
tered matters. The Cossacks who
used to patrol the Russian shore had
disappeared. The new guards appoint
ed by the revolutionaries found it more
interesting to stay in Tornea. Ktrlsson
picked up the rubber. This was only
the first of a chain of such transac-
tons he managed with financial sue
cess.
"Karlsson has meticulously taken the
goods so smuggled to the Swedish GUS
toms authorities, to be assessed for
duty. Quantities of tin, flour and lin
seed oil have similarly come over the
river for many months past. Tin gives
the Firms an advantage. I found one
case where a druggist had come to
grief by taking delivery of and paying
heavily for a thousand kilos of a cheap
alloy. The flour smuggling seems to
indicate that the Firms engaged must
be blackguards of a particularly OBJ
noxious type, for they ship flour out
of their land while they know that
tens of thousands of their fellow
c%ountrymen are nearly starving and
that their government Is sending out
commissions full of piteous appeals to
other lands, America included, to spare
them a little flour. 1t seems curious
that these commissions could not have
tarried a week at the frontier and or
drain of flour there"