File:Opium 1851 BEIC.jpg

Summary edit

Drying balls of contraband opium, at the British East India Company's state monopoly run Sudder Factory in Patna, circa 1851. In this room the balls of opium were stacked prior to their being packed in boxes from transmission to Calcutta and eventually to be smuggled as illicit drugs into China. At that time 450 boys were engaged in stacking, turning, airing and examining the balls or in rubbing them with dried and crushed poppy petal dust to clear them of mildew, moths, or insects for the BEIC. This one room, in only one city, in the Indian-wide British criminal operation contained 300,000 cakes valued at about 900,000 British Pounds Sterling (1850s monetary values).

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