Racket

The Senate Small Business Committee, inquiring into the way the Department of Commerce had been issuing export licenses, discovered that the licenses were the coin in a brisk and profitable business.

Some exporters were using duplicates of licenses issued for the shipment of small quantities of goods to export large quantities of commodities high on the restricted list. Example: license No. 758,447 had been issued by the Department of Commerce for the export of a 1942 Buick car; the copy that went through the Custom House indicated that the license had been used to ship 1,000,000 pounds of flour to Brazil. The perforated word "validated," which made the license official, was forged.

The forged license had been made out to a Manhattan exporter named Harry Levey. He said he had bought it from another exporter, John Quinn.

Last week Quinn was summoned to Washington. Had he forged the department's approval? Quinn disclaimed any responsibility. Traffic in "approved" duplicate licenses, he said, "is a big business in New York; it's done every day." He had bought such licenses both for his own shipments, and for resale. He named half a dozen people who had sold or offered to sell licenses to him.

By week's end the authorities began cracking down. In Manhattan, customs agents arrested four men, among them a Custom House clerk and an employee of American Relief for Italy, Inc., charged them with fraudulent use of Government documents and disguising illegal exports as relief shipments. Licenses, said the Department of Commerce, were made out to specific exporters for specific shipments; any exporter caught buying or selling them could be barred from his trade.

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