You don’t need our advice in this area, but anyway, we say, “Don’t smuggle PC hardware into China. You’ll get caught.” A man recently learned this lesson the hard way when he came from Macau to the Zhuhai-Macao Cross-Border Industrial Zone and tried to sneak his 84 Kingston-branded NVMe SSDs into mainland China. I called.
Chinese customs department Posted about the March 3 incident (opens in new tab) on the WeChat page. A Qingmao customs officer became suspicious when the man tried to bring the electric scooter into a “non-declaration channel” and had to pass through it, but an X-ray machine showed an unknown object hidden in the bumper. It seems that
Agents then disassembled the scooter’s front bumper and found a set of NVMe SSDs taped together within the accelerator tube. After disconnecting the drives from each other, I took pictures of the haul.
No word on what happened to the would-be smuggler, but he was arrested and we can’t help but think he’s in big trouble. Attempting to bring undeclared goods into any country, especially China, is a serious crime. From the photos, it was not possible to identify the model or capacity of his SSD in question, and the agent did not disclose that information.
This isn’t the first smuggling attempt we’ve heard from Chinese customs.In March 2022, a man was found trying to cross the border with 160 Intel CPUs taped to his body. Last December, authorities arrested a woman who had stash 202 of her Intel CPUs and nine of her iPhones. (opens in new tab) in a fake belly.
