Freedom for Sale

EAST-WEST

The three-story white villa in Zu rich's discreet residential district of Hongg is surrounded by electronic devices to detect intruders. As visitors walk from the iron gate to the front door through terraced gardens, they may notice that the burly man water ing the petunias has a revolver stuck in his jeans. They may also see a cheetah and hear the growls, if not feel the breath, of two lion-sized Great Danes.

In short, the house on Ackersteinstrasse seems as forbidding as the Berlin Wall.

It is in fact the headquarters of an organization that specializes in breaching the Wall and other Communist barri ers to help refugees escape to the West.

The villa is also the home of the or ganization's leader, a hefty adventurer whose Swiss passport bears the name of Hans Lenzlinger, but who is more widely known as "the People-Smuggler of Zurich." Now 44, Lenzlinger used to be a big-game hunter in Africa and a trader in animal skins. Then he opened a massage parlor in Zurich in the late '60s. After the parlor ran afoul of the vice squad, he switched to the business of selling freedom. In two years, he claims, he has helped 152 East Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Bulgarians flee to freedom. His standard fee: $10,000 a head (though he offers reduced rates for group escapes).

Lenzlinger calls his outfit Aramco, not after the U.S.-Arabian oil company, he says, but because he likes the sound of the name. He has no monopoly on the trade. Some 20 similar organizations operate within West Germany. Like Aramco, many have advertised in newspapers, under the heading of "Family Reunification" or, more bluntly, Flucht helfer (Escape Helper). Lately they have become a center of controversy. East German authorities have pressured the West German government to crack down on the impresarios of escape. They claim that Fluchthelfer activities violate the spirit of detente and abuse the terms under which East Germany agreed to relax inspections on some major transit routes between the two Germanys. As a result, West German authorities are now threatening to prosecute the escape merchants.

Lenzlinger views the uproar with entrepreneurial opportunism. If Bonn is making things difficult for West German escape organizations, he told TIME'S Robert Kroon, then "someone will have to do the job." Clearly, in Lenzlinger's eyes, no one is better suited than himself. First, he insists, Aramco does not gouge its clients (though many are doctors and other professionals who can expect to make large salaries in the West). "I have not increased my prices, in spite of inflation," he insists. "My profit margin is only 25%. The overhead is tremendous."

Not all the overhead is for staff.

There is also the cost of special equipment, such as vehicles fitted out with secret compartments ("Only crude amateurs use the trunks"), fake uniforms and, for one highly imaginative venture, an electric minisubmarine of the type used occasionally by cigarette smugglers on the border lakes between Switzerland and Italy. Inside his villa office, which is adorned with zebra skins, African spears, various weapons and the hat of an East German policeman (Vopo) given him by a grateful client, Lenzlinger proudly produced for Kroon purported dossiers on some of his escape exploits.

Last year, according to the papers, Lenzlinger bought a Cadillac, fitted it out with false diplomatic plates, hired a "dignified old lady in her 70s" to be a passenger and put one of his men behind the wheel in a chauffeur's uniform. The

Cadillac was driven to East Germany, where two refugees climbed into a special compartment. When the Cadillac recrossed the border, Lenzlinger said, "the Vopos saluted our 'diplomat's wife' respectfully and waved her on."

The minisub caper remains his favorite. According to Lenzlinger, he rented a vacation retreat at Rust, on the Neusiedlersee's Austrian bank, and hid the sub in a boathouse. Under cover of twilight, the sub picked up, one by one, eight refugees assembled near Sopron, Hungary. "The only problem was Hungarian dog patrols," Lenzlinger recounted. "But the police dogs, all running loose, were male German shepherds. So on one trip we released a dachshund bitch in heat. The police dogs vanished and we took in the refugees. We even retrieved the poor dachshund with a supersonic whistle."

Lenzlinger makes freedom smuggling sound like more fun than massage parlors. But there are obvious dangers. One of his associates recently was caught inside Czechoslovakia and sentenced to three years in prison. Since then, Lenzlinger has stopped going to Communist countries. Now he relies on agents. Still, he says, "I have more business than I can handle."

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