CRIME: Stamp Soaking

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Smokers who tear off the corner of a pack of cigarets to open it seldom damage the blue 6¢ U. S. revenue stamp, bearing a grumpy likeness of New York's canal-digging Governor DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828). When they throw the emptied package away, they provide an occupation for untold numbers of scavengers who hunt not only for cellophane and tinfoil wrappings but for untorn revenue stamps. These stamps are not canceled. They can be steamed off, used again. Federal authorities well know that there are crooked, tax-dodging cigaret manufacturers who pay ½¢ for every undamaged DeWitt Clinton 6-center brought to them. Last week in U. S. District Court, Manhattan, indictments were returned charging alleged practitioners of this racket with combined finaglings which had deprived the U.S. Treasury of some $500,000. Indicted were President Harry Triandafillou of Royal Cigarette Corp., Abraham Goodman & Lewis H. Sugarman (makers of Kismet and special club brands), and Retailer Benjamin Seckler. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Triandafillou's company faces a maximum $25,000 fine, himself 123 years in prison.