Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume I

800.114N16 Information/156½

Summary of Arrangements Entered Into Between the United States and Certain Other Governments²

undated

At the instance of the Treasury Department, the Department of the United States Government which is charged with the greater part of the administration of the laws of this Government controlling the traffic in narcotic drugs, the Government of the United States, in an endeavor to bring about a stricter control of the traffic in narcotic drugs, has concluded during the last two years, informal agreements for the direct exchange, between the enforcement officers of the United States and certain other Governments, of information regarding the traffic in narcotic drugs. The countries with which such arrangements have been made are: Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Free City of Danzig, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Portugal, Rumania, Spain and Turkey.

The arrangement provides for

1) The direct exchange between the Treasury Department and the corresponding office in the foreign countries of information and evidence with reference to persons engaged in the illicit traffic, including photographs, criminal records, fingerprints, Bertillon measurements, description of the methods which the persons in question have been found to use, the places from which they have operated, the partners they have worked with, et cetera;

2) The immediate direct forwarding of information by letter or cable as to the suspected movements of narcotic drugs, or of those involved in smuggling drugs, if such movements might concern the other countries, it being realized that unless such information reaches its destination directly and speedily it is useless;

3) Mutual cooperation in detective and investigating work.

Negotiations are in progress with other countries for the conclusion of similar arrangements.³

2. Reprinted from Department of State, Bulletin of Treaty Information, No. 5, July 1929, second supplement. The correspondence constituting the exchanges of notes to effect the arrangements is contained in this “second supplement” and is not reprinted here. Until October 1929, the Bulletin was issued in mimeographed form for distribution.
3. Arrangements by exchanges of notes were also entered into with Austria (signed April 10 and July 24, 1931), Cuba (signed February 12 and March 7, 1930), Egypt (signed June 20 and August 26, 1930), Mexico (signed August 5 and October 2, 1930), Poland (signed August 17 and September 17, 1931), Switzerland (signed November 15 and 16, 1929), and Yugoslavia (signed February 17, 1928, and May 8, 1930). See Department of State, Treaty Information Bulletin No. 39, December 1932, supplement, pp. 80–83.