Henry Bellows, a writer, was arrested here last night by Federal agents while six other men are expected to surrender to Federal authorities within a few days on charges that they seized a yacht last May and used it to smuggle Israel-bound arms and ammunition out of the country by way of Mexico. Three of the six men under indictment with Mr. Bellows are described as businessmen while the other three are said to have been members of the yacht crew.
A secret Federal Grand Jury indictment handed down earlier this week charged the seven men with conspiracy and exporting arms without a State Department permit. Bail was established at $5,000 each. Mr. Bellows, 56, denied any knowledge of the charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Champlin charged today that Herman Greenspun, a Las Vegas, Nev., businessman facing trial Oct. 25 in another case involving the smuggling of planes to Israel troops, was the leader of the group. Mr. Champlin said the men drove several trucks alongside the yacht Idalia, in Los Angeles harbor, and attempted to engage the captain–Island Robert Lewis–to sail with their cargo. When he refused, it is charged, the men forced him at gunpoint to take on the 15 tons of guns and ammunition in the trucks and sail to Acapulco, on the west coast of Mexico.
According to Mr. Champlin, top-ranking Mexican Army and Navy officers and their men helped unload the yacht’s cargo which was then carried by truck across the country to the Gulf of Mexico port of Tampico where it was transferred to an Israel bound vessel. The yacht’s captain was paid $1,700, according to Mr. Champlin, to repair his “badly-damaged” yacht. Mr. Lewis later reported the case to Federal authorities.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
