Customs’ Failure to Inspect Smuggled Arms Investigated

WASHINGTON — The independent counsel in the Iran- contra scandal is probing the U.S. Customs Service’s failure to inspect a 358-ton shipload of smuggled arms unloaded in North Carolina last fall by associates of former National Security Council staff member Oliver L. North, Customs Commissioner William von Raab said Thursday.

The Polish and Portuguese rifles, mines and bullets were part of a covert network of arms deliveries controlled by North and his associates, Richard V. Secord and Albert A. Hakim, during a period when U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan rebels was banned.

The arms, most of which were described on customs forms as oil-drilling equipment, originally were destined for Central America for delivery to the contras. But for reasons that are unexplained, the weapons instead were sent to Wilmington, N.C., last October, where they were unloaded and delivered to the CIA and a Georgia munitions dealer.

It is unlikely that a proper inspection would have revealed any irregularities in the shipment, because the CIA often receives secret arms shipments.

‘Negligence’ by Inspector

Nevertheless, the fact that no thorough inspection was conducted is a matter of concern, Von Raab said. He said that the cargo escaped the legally required examination because of “negligence” by a customs inspector at the scene.

“The inspectors that handled that shipment did not inspect it properly,” he said. “The supervisory inspector that was supposed to be there wasn’t there.

“The Customs Service did not do a good job, and it is not because of some sinister pressures that were put on us. It’s just negligence.”

Von Raab said he did not know whether those at fault had been disciplined because independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh had taken over the investigation of the matter.

Walsh already is investigating other aspects of the shipment of Polish and Portuguese arms, including the possibility that the CIA purchased the weapons to bail out or reward Secord and Hakim, North’s two private associates in the Iran-contra affair.

A firm owned by Secord and Hakim bought the weapons in Europe last summer and loaded them aboard a freighter, the Erria, that North used in a variety of covert missions.

After the shipment eventually was delivered to the CIA at a Pentagon depot near Wilmington, about 90 tons of rifle bullets were sold or given to a Georgia munitions dealer, who sources have said may have helped broker the sale.

Long-Established Procedures

Von Raab, interviewed at a session with The Times Washington Bureau, said that the Customs Service has long-established procedures for inspecting classified shipments of weapons and other goods delivered to the CIA, but declined to discuss them.

In a related matter, the customs commissioner said he had “absolutely” never been asked by Administration officials to quash investigations of private arms smuggling to Iran. Nor, he said, has he been asked to allow arms to be smuggled into or out of the country illegally, except in connection with criminal probes.

A number of defendants in arms-smuggling cases have claimed in the wake of the Iran-contra scandal that their weapons-smuggling deals were secretly approved by the Reagan Administration or given a tacit blessing by customs officials.

Von Raab also said that he spoke to North three times at length about Iran-contra matters.

On two occasions, as noted in the report of the presidential commission headed by Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.), North complained “bitterly” about customs probes of associates who had bought two Maule aircraft for delivery to Central America.