Chinese customs have arrested a man who attempted one of the largest private CPU smuggling attempts ever reported. The culprit was stopped at Qingmoogang while trying to cross from Macau to mainland China with 306 CPUs wrapped around his waist girdle.
According to Chinese information, People’s Daily, the smuggler turned himself in because he was “walking in an unusual posture.” With 306 50 g CPUs per unit he weighs over 15 kg (about 33 pounds), so it’s no wonder the smugglers weren’t comfortable. In addition, paper and tape packing materials should also be considered, as shown in the image.
Another report of this smuggling attempt posted by Hong Kong authorities About the newsThe male passenger wasn’t just wearing a CPU “girdle” around his waist, according to the report. Part of the 306 CPU payload was taped to his leg. In the image we see a slim passenger in a black loose-fitting sports shirt. The top image shows the shirt rolled up from the waist.
None of the sources mentioned the brand or model of CPU that was stolen from the smugglers. But there are clear images of his two customs officers inspecting the shipment of CPUs. If you zoom in on this image, you can see 12 CPU packs unpacked. We don’t know enough details to identify these chips with certainty, but they appear to have the characteristic ‘octopus’ IHS, so they could be AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs.
Of course, it’s not illegal to bring CPUs from Macau (or Hong Kong) into mainland China. However, these arrested smugglers tried to bypass the customs border “no declaration route” to pass through. As I said before, tax differentials lure people into the risky business of smuggling technology into the mainland. VAT on consumer goods in mainland China is normally 13%, while Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions benefit from zero VAT.
Reports of such concerns were widely shared in the Chinese-language media, but they did not appear to have prompted smugglers to step up their activities. Earlier this week, we reported an equally ridiculous story of a hardware trafficker who tried to smuggle 420 of his M.2 SSDs into China (again from Macau). Other CPU-smuggling blunders we’ve reported on in recent months include a man who taped about 160 Intel CPUs to his body, and his 202 Intel CPUs in his prosthetic abdomen. Including an inventive but failed attempt to smuggle a CPU.
