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Columbia Encyclopedia entry: smuggling

Smuggling, illegal transport across state or national boundaries of goods or persons liable to customs or to prohibition. Smuggling has been carried on in nearly all nations and has occasionally been adopted as an instrument of national policy, as by Great Britain against Spain and France in the 18th and 19th cent. The restrictive economic policies of mercantilism in the 17th and 18th cent. gave rise to smuggling in France, the Spanish colonies, and North America. British attempts to halt the practice by stringent enforcement of the Navigation Acts were a contributory cause of the American Revolution. Napoleon's decrees attempting to seal off the European continent from British commerce gave rise to widespread smuggling in the early 19th cent. Britain, source of free-trade philosophy, has been more liberal in her antismuggling laws than other nations; the practice was condoned in a famous passage by Adam Smith. Smuggling into the United States flourished in the prohibition era and was carried on practically with impunity from overseas and overland from Canada. Illegal entry of immigrants into the United States has also presented a problem during periods of curtailment of immigration, as at the end of World War I and in recent years. Luxury articles, stolen art and other goods, electronic devices and software, and specifically prohibited items such as narcotics are smuggled worldwide. The U.S. Coast Guard has the suppression of smuggling as one of its chief activities. U.S. law declares the article smuggled to be forfeit and the smuggler liable to a fine or imprisonment, or both. Examples of the smuggling of persons are the slave trade to the United States and Latin America following its outlawing by the great powers in the early 19th cent. and the traffic in women for immoral purposes, contrary to international convention.

See J. J. Farjeon, The Compleat Smuggler (1938); N. Williams, Contraband Cargoes (1959); T. Green, The Smugglers (1969); H. Waters, Smugglers of Spirits (1971).

Wikipedia search results for: Smuggling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons past a point where prohibited, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as drugs, illegal immigration or emigration, tax evasion, providing contraband to a prison inmate, or the theft of the items being smuggled. Examples of non-financial motivations include bringing banned items past a security checkpoint or the removal of classified documents from a government or corporate office. The word probably comes...more »

Columbia Encyclopedia search results: smuggling

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Macdonald, Flora
Macdonald, Flora, 1722–90, Scottish Jacobite heroine. She aided Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, to escape to France after the defeat of the Jacobites at Culloden Moor in...
Calexico
Calexico, city (1990 pop. 18,633), Imperial co., S Calif., at the Mexican border; inc. 1908. A port of entry from adjacent Mexicali, Baja California, it is also a trade center for the southern...
Manzanillo, city, Cuba
Manzanillo, city (1994 est. pop. 98,000), Granma prov., SE Cuba, a port on the Guacanayabo Gulf of the Caribbean Sea. A leading city on Cuba's southern coast, Manzanillo is a commercial center...
Regla
Regla, city (1994 est. pop. 44,000), Ciudad de la Habana prov., W Cuba, a commercial and industrial suburb of Havana. It grew up around the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Regla (est. 1690) and...
Opium Wars
Opium Wars, 1839–42 and 1856–60, two wars between China and Western countries. The first was between Great Britain and China. Early in the 19th cent., British merchants began smuggling opium i...
Jason, in Greek mythology
Jason, in Greek mythology, son of Aeson. When Pelias usurped the throne of Iolcus and killed (or imprisoned) Aeson and most of his descendants, Jason was smuggled off to the centaur Chiron, wh...
Eagle Pass
Eagle Pass, city (1990 pop. 20,651), seat of Maverick co., W Tex., a port of entry on the Rio Grande opposite Piedras Negras, Mexico; inc. 1918. Linked by highway with Mexico City, it is a tou...
Interpol
Interpol, acronym for the International Criminal Police Organization, a worldwide clearinghouse for police information. Conceived in 1914, Interpol was formally established in 1923 with headqu...
Jenkins's Ear, War of
Jenkins's Ear, War of, 1739–41, struggle between England and Spain. It grew out of the commercial rivalry of the two powers and led to involvement in the larger War of the Austrian Succession....
Provincetown
Provincetown, resort town (1990 pop. 3,374), Barnstable co., SE Mass., on the tip of Cape Cod, with a harbor on Cape Cod Bay; inc. 1727. The principal industries are tourism and fishing. The P...

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