{{Short description|American inspector for the Customs Service (1891–1968)}} {{Distinguish|text=Hans Scharff, (Interrogator Scharff) or John Thomas Scharf, (Chinese Inspector Scharf) an earlier Treasury agent}} {{Infobox officeholder | image = Alvin Scharff.png | caption = 1922 Service Credential photograph | name = Alvin Friedman Scharff | nickname = Señor Sharpis | birth_date = May 20, 1891 | death_date = March 24, 1968 (Aged 76) | birth_place = Camden, Ouachita County, Arkansas, USA | death_place = Houston, Harris County, Texas, USA | resting_place = Beth Israel Cemetery | branch = *Mexican Army *Federal Bureau of Investigation *United States Customs Service | battles = {{tree list}} *Mexican Revolution *World War I **Mexico during World War I *World War II {{tree list/end}} | office = Executive Director, Houston Crime Commission | term_start = 1961 | term_end = 1968 | office1 = Supervising Special Agent in Charge of East Texas | term_start1 = 1943 | term_end1 = 1961 | 1blankname1 = Commissioners | 1namedata1 = *William Roy Johnson *Frank Dow *Ralph Kelly | 2blankname1 = Duty Stations | 2namedata1 = Port of Houston, Port of Galveston, Port of Beaumont, Port of Port Arthur | office2 = Special Agent in Charge | term_start2 = 1938 | term_end2 = 1943 | 1blankname2 = Commissioners | 1namedata2 = *James Moyle *Basil Harris *William Roy Johnson | 2blankname2 = Duty Station | 2namedata2 = Port of Houston | office3 = Chief United States Narcotics Investigator for Europe | 1blankname3 = Secretary | 1namedata3 = Henry Morgenthau Jr. | term_start3 = 1937 | term_end3 = 1938 | office4 = Commanding Officer of the United States Customs Air Brigade | term_start4 = 1931 | term_end4 = March 9, 1934 | education = Memphis High School | predecessor = Dan E. Goodykoontz }}

'''Alvin "Al" Friedman Scharff''' (May 20, 1891 – March 24, 1968), was an American counterfeiter, cattle rustler, and smuggler, who later became a lifelong inspector for the United States Customs Service.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Roark |first=Garland |title=The coin of contraband: the true story of United States Customs investigator Al Scharff |date=1964 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City, N.Y |ol=24764016M }}</ref>

== Biography == In 1910, a year into his studies at university in Tennessee, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told he had six months to live.<ref name=":2" /> For his health, and to reduce his bouts of coughing up blood, he spent most of his life in the dryer climates between the Southwestern United States and Mexico.<ref name=":2" /> In 1912, while working on a construction site near Tampico, Scharff was recruited into the Mexican Army, where he fought with a militia group under the distant command of Victoriano Huerta in several minor battles of the Mexican Revolution against the militias of Pascual Orozco, before deserting his post and escaping back to the United States, where he worked as a traveling salesman for several years.<ref name=":2" />

In 1915, he became involved in a counterfeiting operation, dealing in fake Mexican pesos in the areas of Sonora and Nogales/Nogales.<ref name=":2" /> In 1918, he took part in a massive spy hunt for German spies in Mexico, assassinating two of them supposedly on the orders of the United States Government.<ref name=":2" /> In 1919, he joined Customs and advanced through the ranks from inspector, mounted inspector, special agent, special agent in charge (SAC), to eventually become supervising special agent in charge (SSAC).<ref name=":2" />

Sometime in the 1920s, Scharff was assigned responsibilities to investigate violations of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act, and began investigating a smuggling operation in Mexico that he believed was importing massive amounts of heroin from somewhere in Europe.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Valentine |first=Douglas |title=The Strength of the Wolf |publisher=Verso, an imprint of New Left Books |year=2004 |location=London and Brooklyn |pages=46–49, 66, 197–200, 497}}</ref> While on deployments into Mexico, he coordinated heavily with members of the Mexican federal Narcotics Police.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Pérez Ricart |first1=Carlos A. |last2=Olvera Hernández |first2=Nidia A. |date=May 4, 2021 |title=Ascenso y declive de la Policía de Narcóticos del Departamento de Salubridad Pública en México (1917-1960) |journal=Historia mexicana |language=es |volume=70 |issue=4 |pages=1661–1713 |doi=10.24201/hm.v70i4.4240 |issn=2448-6531|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pérez Ricart |first=Carlos A. |date=October 11, 2021 |title=Estados Unidos frente a la promulgación y suspensión en México del Reglamento de Toxicomanías de 1940 |journal=Foro Internacional |language=es |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=649–686 |doi=10.24201/fi.v61i3.2775 |issn=0185-013X|doi-access=free }}</ref> As this was also the Prohibition era, Scharff also chased down rum-runners, even going into Canada to track down two notorious rum-runners named Big Jim Clark and George Musey.<ref>Galveston Daily News. ''Newspaper Archives''. April 19, 1931. Page 1</ref>

In 1931, Scharff set up the first-ever Air brigade along the Mexico–US border, notably in command of this brigade during a 200-mile chase to pursue the flying ace and rum-runner Thomas Ponder.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Did You Know... Former 'Contrabandista' Using Confiscated Aircraft Started Rogue Customs Air Brigade? {{!}} U.S. Customs and Border Protection |url=https://www.cbp.gov/about/history/did-you-know/contrabandista |access-date=2025-09-02 |website=www.cbp.gov |language=en}}</ref> In 1936, Scharff ran afoul of Josephus Daniels, who did not understand why Scharff was running an investigation in Mexico City.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Walker III |first=William O. |date=1981 |title=Drug Control in the Americas |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP98-01394R000200090001-8.pdf |website=CIA Reading Room |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |page=119}}</ref>

In 1937, while following the threads of the massive narcotics network, the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., assigned Scharff the responsibility as chief narcotics investigator for all of Europe.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> While in Europe, he infiltrated a branch of the Sûreté Nationale that had been providing protection for a drug kingpin named Louis Lyon, eventually gathering enough evidence to have Lyon publicly convicted, at the same time endeavoring not to compromise Lyon's secret missions against Nazis in the French criminal underworld.<ref name=":0" />

Scharff was constantly at-odds with Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), and believed that narcotics investigation efforts should remain in the control of Customs, and not the nascent agency.<ref name=":0" /> Especially throughout his career, Scharff went into shouting matches with Anslinger's top enforcement agent, George Hunter White, who would eventually launch an investigation of his own into Scharff in 1954.<ref name=":0" /> Scharff was forced to retire from Customs in 1961 at the mandatory government retirement age of 70, but soon became the executive director of the Houston Crime Commission.

== References == {{reflist}}

== External links ==

* [https://archives.sfasu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/40953 East Texas Research Center, research collections related to book about Scharff] * [https://archives.ungeneva.org/commission-consultative-de-lopium-et-drogues-nuisibles-sous-comission-des-stupefiants-o-c-s-c-l-1-2-1930-l-s-l-1-83-1933-46/informationobject/inventory?page=1&sort=dateUp Records of the League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee] (''his name here is usually misspelled as "Alvin T. Scharff," due to a misreading of his signature'')

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scharff, Al}} Category:History of drug control in the United States Category:United States Customs Service personnel Category:1891 births Category:1968 deaths Category:American smugglers Category:American counterfeiters Category:American expatriates in Mexico Category:People of the Mexican Revolution Category:People from Ouachita County, Arkansas