A truck driver wanted to smuggle goods worth nearly 4 million euros to China. However, he was caught. The method may be unremarkable, but so is what the police managed to seize.
The Chinese police have arrested a 61-year-old truck driver who wanted to bring 30 wooden crates with display units across the border. However, the police scanners found that the crates instead contained hardware worth 3.8 million euros.
With the found hardware, one could equip an entire small town.
Due to the large quantity, the truck driver could not use any trick to hide the hardware directly on his body. When the police opened the crates, they found over 500,000 electronic devices, including processors, storage drives, laptops, and numerous phones. The authorities had posted a picture showing all the seized hardware.
While the government authorities threaten smugglers with severe fines and prison sentences, this does not deter most from engaging in the apparently lucrative business of smuggling. According to PCGamer.com, such individuals face a ‘maximum penalty of 2 million dollars and a prison term of seven years,’ as stated by the customs authority in Hong Kong.
Colleagues from Techspot also report that smuggling has significantly increased in recent years. This is because hardware is much more expensive in China than in other countries. The incidents primarily occur at the checkpoints on the border between Hong Kong and Macau, as there are economic differences between these two regions and the mainland.
At the border, people are regularly arrested who often have particularly elaborate ideas to smuggle hardware past the Chinese authorities.
Recently, someone tried to smuggle several hundred processors past customs. However, his strange behavior drew the police’s attention:
A guy tries to smuggle 239 gaming processors and makes a really stupid mistake at customs
