The Weird Post

Posted by admin on May 29th, 2008 in weird

HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong and Chinese customs have cracked an audacious smuggling operation that saw millions of dollars in goods ferried across the border along a long cable, officials and reports said Thursday.

Sixteen people — four from Hong Kong and 12 from China — were arrested and electronic goods, including computer accessories and mobile phones, worth more than six million Hong Kong dollars (0.8 million US) were seized.

“The ring was suspected of smuggling high-value electronic goods and computer accessories across the Sha Tau Kok river to the mainland,” Hong Kong’s customs department said in a statement.

A 300-metre-long cable was suspended between a house in rural Hong Kong and a high-rise building in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, allowing smugglers to move goods into the mainland using an elaborate pulley system, the South China Morning Post reported.

“There were many ways of smuggling in the past, such as by underground drains,” the report quoted Leo Sin, head of Hong Kong’s customs intelligence co-ordination group, as saying.

“But this is the first time we have found wire being used for smuggling.”

The cable was shot across the border using a crossbow and the goods were ferried across at night in black plastic bags, the report said.

The syndicate had been operating for two or three weeks, the report added.

Hong Kong and mainland China run independent legal and taxation systems, and smugglers often try to take advantage of different prices and tax rates to smuggle goods either in or out of China.

source: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080529/tod-hongkong-china-crime-smuggling-offbe-575248e.html