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complication was that arrivals at Aleppo who claimed to be employees or
agents of British intelligence organizations had to be accommodated in a
safe house while instructions as to their disposal were awaited from Cairo.
This, of course, necessitated the use of additional SIME staff to escort,
transport, provision, and protect such personnel locally, who were mostly
bona fide Special Operations Executive (SOE) or Secret Intelligence
Service (SIS) employees, but who might also turn out to be persons of
interest to the secret services.^12
Despite the introduction of such strict controls at Aleppo, the CIWL
conductors and attendants remained the weakest point in the system. It
had been recognized for a long time that the staff of the Taurus Express
added considerably to their incomes by smuggling and the illegal transfer
of mail. It was also known that some of them were in the pay of the
Abwehr in Istanbul. CICI found it difficult, however, to assess the true
scope and significance of such illicit activity, not least because of malicious
rumours. Frequent reports of such espionage reached DSO Iraq but were
often inspired by the incessant jealousies and rivalries that inflamed the
subworld of racketeering intrigue. In a country as ill-stocked with luxury
commodities as Iraq, the profits from smuggling were greater and the risks
immeasurably less than those from espionage. Nevertheless, with effect
from 30 May 1944, CICI introduced a new regulation according to which
no member of the CIWL staff not directly connected with the mechanical
running of the train was permitted to cross the Turco-Syrian frontier.
Whoever had previously used CIWL personnel to smuggle goods and mail
was therefore forced to find other means of communication. These might
be ordinary passengers or the use of code or secret writing in regular cor-
respondence. Consequently, CICI instructed the postal censorship
authorities to exercise greater vigilance and introduced even stricter
searches of passengers at the Aleppo CEV.^13
Security problems within CIWL were not just to be found among train
staff but also at the management level. For instance, DSO Iraq had a
group of four ‘businessmen of unsavoury character’ under surveillance for
some time. The group included one Hamparson Andriassian, an Armenian
Iraqi born in Turkey, who was the Baghdad agent for the Taurus Express.
Before the war, besides dabbling in other kinds of business, Andriassian
had represented a British insurance company until joining CIWL in 1939.
Described by DSO as a gambler and a heavy drinker, he was considered
‘completely unprincipled and ... the type of man who would do anything
for money,’ and he was known to have engaged in smuggling ventures