Gongbei Customs announced in a press conference on Tuesday that it has busted a gang that smuggled luxury products – including leather products and watches – from Macau to the mainland.
The gang’s modus operandi was that some of its members travelled to Europe to buy the luxury products and sent them to Macau by express courier, after which the same or other members smuggled the products from Macau to Zhuhai via the Gongbei checkpoint by carrying only a small number of the products each time, as if they were for their personal use only.
The press conference was held at Gongbei Customs’ headquarters.
According to the press conference, during the operation some 1,300 items such as luxury watches, clothing, shoes and bags were seized, involving a total of 160 million yuan. A total of 25 suspected gang members, which ran seven sub-units, were arrested early this month in various cities across the country, according to the press conference.
Based on a tip-off Gongbei Customs had received, its officers started to investigate in February. After a five-month investigation, Gongbei Customs knew how the gang was smuggling the products, identified various gang members, and gathered a large amount of evidence on their smuggling activities, according to the press conference.
On August 2, Gongbei Customs took action, in which 160 officers in 33 groups went to various cities on the mainland – including Beijing, Changsha, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Taizhou, Tianjin and Zhuhai – and arrested the 25 suspects.
At the locations where the 25 suspects were arrested, the officers seized about 1,300 luxury goods, as well as other evidence such as mobile phones, laptops and accounting records.
According to the Macau Post Daily, Gongbei Customs discovered that the gang received its orders for branded luxury products from mainland customers via social networking sites. Before the goods were smuggled to Zhuhai, they were stored in a warehouse in Macau.
