UNDER A VEST: Man cuffed for smuggling 94 iPhones strapped to his body Chinese authorities have captured a man trying to smuggle 94 iPhones strapped to his body into the Middle Kingdom. Photos shared by the state's People's Daily newspaper show the man stripped of his outerwear to expose an elaborate layer of Apple handsets fastened with plastic wrap and duct tape to his torso, abdomen, groin and …
Clearly, since this guy was walking like C3P0 he could have just said he's testing their bendability.
I'll bet he was set up to go through a line with a particular guy who would wave him through, but the plan fell through somehow. No way you'd do that without some reason to believe you wouldn't get caught. Even if he was dumb, who is going to try 94 phones the first time they attempt smuggling?
Someone didn't get their bribe on time, or was out sick on the wrong day.
Do you have to go through a metal detector to get from HK to mainland China? Serious question, I've never tried.
The thought that strikes me is, he just got greedy. 94 iPhones net $49k profit? Then 30 of the things - which he could easily have carried much less obtrusively - would have made over $15k, plenty to cover expenses with a nice little profit to spare - then he could have gone back next month to do it again.
With regard to the metal detector, It will depend on which border crossing is used, though its usually farcical lunacy at best in any case. Some crossings you can just drive through with the boot open, others crossings for foot passengers may have checks similar to air port security. I recall my suitcase was x-rayed once, on that occasion I had around 20Kg of pipe flanges hidden in it (they were needed on site in a hurry), I passed through without any issue, though I expect treatment of westerners and locals is quite different.
Oh and $49k is the total value of the haul not profit, unless he stole the phones on the HK side. A profit of only a few dollars a phone would be incentive enough for the smugglers and still be considered highly lucrative.
According to my calculations, 94 newish iPhones would weigh somewhere between 9.1 and 14 kg (23-36 lbs), which distributed over your body isn't really all that heavy or cumbersome.
So obviously this story didn't really happen, its a false flag op by Chinese customs to intimidate and ridicule Hong Kong's smugglers in the media.
"Is there an estimation of how much iThingies the average fanboy owns for "personal usage"? "
A friend of mine has 2 macbooks, an all in one desktop an iPad and three or four iPhones and he insists it's because its' the first tech shop you come to as you go into town.
To be fair on the phones he travels a lot and has local sims already in a couple of the phones.
He's a musician and one of the macbooks has a huge amount of music on it which connects up to everything on stage.
Yeah, the HK/SZ border is not some clinical efficient passport control like you see in Western airports. It's a dirty bridge rammed with thousands of people dragging huge piles of wheelie luggage full of Luis Vuitton bags and baby milk powder and contraband.
I've never had a bag X-rayed going through there....easiest way to smuggle phones is probably to pay a gweilo to carry them through in a shoulder bag.
Why not just buy the iPhones on the internet and have them delivered to China by post?
Just have them scrawl 'gift' on the customs label and should sail through security without a hitch as that is exactly what the Chinese do when they deliver to the UK and I, I mean my friend always gets his goods.
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