Chinese customs had a strange day when checking a woman who was trying to smuggle electronic equipment… in a belly prosthesis.
This is the kind of story that we thought was more specific to the world of drugs! And yet, a young Chinese woman was arrested with state-of-the-art Intel processors and several iPhones hidden in a plastic belly simulating a pregnancy.
202 processors, 9 iPhone… but no baby!
It all starts at the Macao border. Since its retrocession by Portugal in 1999, the city has been a special administrative region, like Hong Kong. It is therefore managed according to the principle of “one country, two systems”, justifying in particular the persistence of a border between the city known for its casinos and the rest of mainland China.
A young pregnant woman, wishing to leave the port city, quietly crosses the border between the two territories located at the port of Gongbei, in the city of Zhuhai. But the customs officers in post are surprised by the ease of movement of this person, who claimed to be 5-6 months pregnant, but whose large belly seemed rather to signal a third trimester.
Neither one nor two, the police authorities arrest him, and examine him more closely. They then realize that the young lady is not pregnant, but that she wears a belly prosthesis in which they find a rich booty: 202 Alder Lake processors (the 12e generation of Intel Core processors), as well as 9 iPhones, presumably from the iPhone 14 series.
A tactic already spotted
And if the Chinese authorities were quick to spot the subterfuge, it is because there are already precedents. So last May, a man tried to enter Chinese territory with 160 of the same Alder Lake processors mentioned above strapped around his body. He was then nicknamed the “walking processor”.
It seems that the hefty customs duties imposed by Middle Kingdom regulators are making electronics smuggling a lucrative business. To the point that this kind of attempt is not simply the prerogative of individuals, but of even more structured organizations.
Already in the summer of 2021, Hong Kong customs officials had announced the dismantling of a CPU smuggling activity carried out by drivers used to crossing the border. With the pressure that the United States wishes to put on this sector, is smuggling likely to intensify?
Source : Wccftech
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