There’s been another smuggling attempt at the border of Hong Kong and China, just a fortnight after a man tried to smuggle several SSDs into the mainland. This time around, though, it feels as if the smuggler wasn’t bothered to make a greater effort in concealing the goods, given how the discovery was made.
According to the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, the suspect is a 61 year old man who tried to smuggle around US$3.8 million (~RM16.74 million) worth of electronic goods from Hong Kong into Mainland China. With a haul that valuable, it’s clear he wasn’t going to be taping bags of them across his body. So, he went with the most basic of smuggling methods: he tried to hide the electronic goods inside crates as best he can, loaded them on to his truck, and then proceeded to lie to the customs officers at the border about the contents.
In total, the Hong Kong smuggler had 30 wooden boxes all of which were labelled as electronic displays – components that incur a light import tax in China. Once it went through the x-ray machine, though, the customs officials found that they contained almost 510000 pieces of hardware that included CPUs, storage drives, laptops, and smartphones.
Smuggling goods across the borders between the SAR territories and mainland China is nothing new. Last year in November, we reported on a woman who tried to smuggle over 200 Intel CPUs through the use of a prosthetic belly. It was a clever idea, but what ultimately led to the women getting caught was her behaviour, which customs officials at the time said were not habits displayed by pregnant women, especially one with a belly as big as hers at the time.
For his crimes, the Hong Kong smuggler was arrested but the customs on the Hong Kong side said that it had already released the man on bail, pending further investigation. If he’s convicted, he could face a fine of US$254000 (~RM1.11 million) and a seven-year prison sentence.
(Source: Hong Kong Customs, Techspot)
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