Cigar smuggling is Dead easy.....

[El Presidente]

 

..... I became slightly aroused while reading this article. 

 

Commentary: Creative smuggling when Texas was a republic

From “Colonel Jones” to musclebound missionaries, W.F. Strong highlights a few clever contraband-carriers.

Smugglers in the days of the Republic of Texas moved such cargo as firearms, cigars, sugars and molasses.

 

If there’s one thing the Texans of the early Republic never lacked, it was imagination – especially when it came to dodging tariffs and taxes. 

There’s an old story that comes from the Sabine River country. In those days, that river was more of an inconvenience than a barrier. It was hard to patrol. Smugglers ran whiskey, coffee, tobacco and weapons upriver under every kind of disguise you can think of.

But the most inventive was the coffin trick.

The story goes that a certain trader, who went by the name “Colonel Jones,” ran a ferry and operated a funeral business on the side. He offered full burials for settlers who died far from home.

One day, he brought a wagon to the customs post near San Augustine, hauling three pine coffins.

The customs officer tipped his hat and stepped aside. No one wanted to poke around where the dead were involved. Too much risk of bad luck.

But here’s the kicker.

Two days later, one of those coffins was spotted by someone official in the back of a general store in Nacogdoches. It was opened up and, surprise, it was filled with barrels of molasses, sacks of sugar and crates of cigars. Not a corpse in sight.

Colonel Jones had figured it out: No one inspects a coffin.

He ran the scam for months, maybe years. Changed the names on the headboards. Sometimes used real funerals as cover, slipping contraband into the second or third casket in cases of a “family tragedy.”

Eventually the ruse was uncovered but, again, no charges. By then, he had friends in high places, including a judge who supposedly owed him a favor… Or maybe he awaited his shipment of Havana cigars.

https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/wf-strong-commentary-texas-history-smuggling-republic/

[Cigar Surgeon]