# Al Scharff

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Al_Scharff
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Al_Scharff.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Scharff
> Source revision: 1350924309
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

Not to be confused with [Hans Scharff](/source/Hans_Scharff), (Interrogator Scharff) or [John Thomas Scharf](/source/John_Thomas_Scharf), (Chinese Inspector Scharf) an earlier Treasury agent.

**Alvin "Al" Friedman Scharff** (May 20, 1891 – March 24, 1968), was an American [counterfeiter](/source/Counterfeit), [cattle rustler](/source/Cattle_Rustling), and [smuggler](/source/Smuggler), who later became a lifelong [inspector](/source/Inspector) for the [United States Customs Service](/source/United_States_Customs_Service).[1]

## Biography

In 1910, a year into his studies at university in [Tennessee](/source/Tennessee), he was diagnosed with [tuberculosis](/source/Tuberculosis) and told he had six months to live.[1] 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](/source/Southwestern_United_States) and [Mexico](/source/Mexico).[1] In 1912, while working on a construction site near [Tampico](/source/Tampico), Scharff was recruited into the [Mexican Army](/source/Mexican_Army), where he fought with a militia group under the distant command of [Victoriano Huerta](/source/Victoriano_Huerta) in several minor battles of the [Mexican Revolution](/source/Mexican_Revolution) against the militias of [Pascual Orozco](/source/Pascual_Orozco), before deserting his post and escaping back to the United States, where he worked as a [traveling salesman](/source/Sales) for several years.[1]

In 1915, he became involved in a [counterfeiting](/source/Counterfeit) operation, dealing in fake [Mexican pesos](/source/Mexican_peso) in the areas of [Sonora](/source/Sonora) and [Nogales](/source/Nogales,_Arizona)/[Nogales](/source/Nogales,_Sonora).[1] 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.[1] In 1919, he joined Customs and advanced through the ranks from inspector, [mounted inspector](/source/Mounted_inspector), [special agent](/source/Special_agent), [special agent in charge](/source/Special_Agent_in_Charge) (SAC), to eventually become [supervising special agent in charge](/source/Supervising_special_agent_in_charge) (SSAC).[1]

Sometime in the 1920s, Scharff was assigned responsibilities to investigate violations of the [Harrison Narcotics Tax Act](/source/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.[2] While on deployments into Mexico, he coordinated heavily with members of the Mexican federal [Narcotics Police](/source/Narcotics_Police).[3][4] As this was also the [Prohibition era](/source/Prohibition_in_the_United_States), Scharff also chased down [rum-runners](/source/Rum-running), even going into [Canada](/source/Canada) to track down two notorious rum-runners named [Big Jim Clark](/source/Big_Jim_Clark) and [George Musey](/source/George_Musey).[5]

In 1931, Scharff set up the first-ever [Air brigade](/source/Air_brigade) along the [Mexico–US border](/source/Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border), notably in command of this brigade during a 200-mile chase to pursue the flying ace and rum-runner [Thomas Ponder](/source/William_Thomas_Ponder).[6] In 1936, Scharff ran afoul of [Josephus Daniels](/source/Josephus_Daniels), who did not understand why Scharff was running an investigation in [Mexico City](/source/Mexico_City).[7]

In 1937, while following the threads of the massive narcotics network, the [Secretary of the Treasury](/source/United_States_Secretary_of_the_Treasury), [Henry Morgenthau Jr.](/source/Henry_Morgenthau_Jr.), assigned Scharff the responsibility as chief narcotics investigator for all of [Europe](/source/Europe).[2][6] While in Europe, he infiltrated a branch of the [Sûreté Nationale](/source/National_Police_(France)) that had been providing protection for a drug kingpin named [Louis Lyon](/source/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.[2]

Scharff was constantly at-odds with [Harry Anslinger](/source/Harry_J._Anslinger) and the [Federal Bureau of Narcotics](/source/Federal_Bureau_of_Narcotics) (FBN), and believed that narcotics investigation efforts should remain in the control of Customs, and not the nascent agency.[2] Especially throughout his career, Scharff went into shouting matches with Anslinger's top enforcement agent, [George Hunter White](/source/George_Hunter_White), who would eventually launch an investigation of his own into Scharff in 1954.[2] 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](/source/Houston_Crime_Commission).

## References

1. Roark, Garland (1964). *The coin of contraband: the true story of United States Customs investigator Al Scharff*. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday.

1. Valentine, Douglas (2004). *The Strength of the Wolf*. London and Brooklyn: Verso, an imprint of New Left Books. pp. 46–49, 66, 197–200, 497.

1. Pérez Ricart, Carlos A. & Olvera Hernández, Nidia A. (May 4, 2021). "Ascenso y declive de la Policía de Narcóticos del Departamento de Salubridad Pública en México (1917-1960)" (in Spanish). *Historia mexicana*. **70** (4): 1661–1713. [doi:10.24201/hm.v70i4.4240](https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v70i4.4240). [ISSN 2448-6531](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/2448-6531)

1. Pérez Ricart, Carlos A. (October 11, 2021). "Estados Unidos frente a la promulgación y suspensión en México del Reglamento de Toxicomanías de 1940" (in Spanish). *Foro Internacional*. **61** (3): 649–686. [doi:10.24201/fi.v61i3.2775](https://doi.org/10.24201/fi.v61i3.2775). [ISSN 0185-013X](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0185-013X)

1. Galveston Daily News. *Newspaper Archives*. April 19, 1931. Page 1

1. ["Did You Know... Former 'Contrabandista' Using Confiscated Aircraft Started Rogue Customs Air Brigade? | U.S. Customs and Border Protection"](https://www.cbp.gov/about/history/did-you-know/contrabandista). *www.cbp.gov*. Retrieved 2025-09-02.

1. Walker III, William O. (1981). ["Drug Control in the Americas"](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP98-01394R000200090001-8.pdf). *CIA Reading Room*. University of New Mexico Press. p. 119.

## External links

- [East Texas Research Center, research collections related to book about Scharff](https://archives.sfasu.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/40953)
- [Records of the League of Nations Opium Advisory Committee](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) (*his name here is usually misspelled as "Alvin T. Scharff," due to a misreading of his signature*)

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Al Scharff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Scharff) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Scharff?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.