It is noticeable that a very large part of the cargoes condemned by the British Prize Court, as actually intended for the enemy though consigned to other pretended destinations, consists of goods from Latin America. For example, in August 1917 the Court condemned quantities of coffee, seized on a score of neutral steamers and ostensibly consigned to Scandinavian and Dutch merchants, but in fact shipped by a German firm at Santos for the parent house in Hamburg. Two months later, it was stated in court that nearly £400,000 worth of wool, shipped from Buenos Aires to the Swedish Army Administration at Gothenburg, had been seized by the British as being in fact destined for Leipzig. At the same time the Court condemned a number of manufactured rubber articles which had been found concealed in a passenger's clothing. On a later occasion, coffee and cocoa valued at nearly £200,000 were condemned, being part cargo of a Swedish ship bound from California to Gothenburg. They were consigned by a new and insignificant firm in San Francisco to various persons in Scandinavia, but were in fact on their way from Guatemala to Hamburg through Sweden.
The elaborate webs spun by German traders and revealed by intercepted correspondence were exposed in the Prize Court. Their methods were to find persons in neutral countries as nominal consignees, to act as intermediaries for getting the goods to Germany; to set up bogus companies for the same purpose; to use false names, or names of persons having no genuine interest in the consignment, and to manufacture false documents in order to give the appearance of neutral business. This was done to evade capture by deceiving the belligerent searchers. In some instances these methods succeeded. Quantities of coffee, consigned to Scandinavia, managed to elude the allied warships and reach Hamburg.
These are cases of import into Germany. The reverse process, export from Germany through neutrals, follows similar lines. German goods, falsely labelled and described as Swiss or Dutch or Scandinavian manufactures, have found their way across the Atlantic in neutral ships.
The Post Office has also served as a channel of secret trade. Pictures in the Press have exhibited the odd ingenuity of these devices: how coffee from Brazil to Germany was found concealed in rolls of newspapers, and how thin slabs of rubber were sent by post as photographs, also how quantities of jewellery have been despatched from Germany for South America in letters and in bundles of samples or journals. Goods so sent from Germany through the Post Office are mostly such as combine small bulk with high value--especially drugs and jewellery.