China Catches Smugglers Using Drones to Transport $80M Worth of iPhones From Hong Kong to Mainland

[MacRumors]

A group of criminals in China were caught smuggling 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) worth of refurbished iPhones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, using drones connected via cables to transport the smartphones. Reported by the Legal Daily (via Reuters), customs officers in Shenzhen caught the group and ceased its illegal actions, arresting 26 total suspects in the process.

Photo by Liu Youzhi/Southern Metropolis Daily via Reuters​

The group was using drones to fly two 660-foot cables between Hong Kong and the mainland as a method of transporting the iPhones. They typically operated after midnight and into the morning hours, and "only needed seconds" to transport small bags that held 10 iPhones or more using the cable-connected drones. In one night, they could reach a quota of as many as 15,000 iPhones transported.

According to a news conference held by the customs officers, this marks "the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes."

Shenzhen customs was quoted by the Legal Daily as saying it would closely monitor new types of smuggling with high-tech devices and enhance their capability with technical equipment, including drones and high-resolution monitors, to detect smuggling activity.

Drone regulations are said to be "an important task" for Chinese officials, with the government publishing a series of strict rules in 2017 after drones were found to be interfering with aircraft flight paths. Civilian drone owners are now required to register any drone "up to a certain weight" using their real names.

While using drones might be new, the act of individuals attempting to smuggle iPhones out of Hong Kong has certainly been around for years. In early 2015, a man tried to smuggle 94 iPhones into mainland China by strapping them onto his body and under his clothes. Smuggling operations pop up frequently because of higher import taxes, which cause the iPhones to be more expensive in the mainland than they are in Hong Kong.

Article Link: China Catches Smugglers Using Drones to Transport $80M Worth of iPhones From Hong Kong to Mainland

 

[jacjustjac]

I know smuggling is a bad thing, but that is so cool!

 

[rhett7660]

I know smuggling is a bad thing, but that is so cool!

I agree, this is pretty cool, 15,000 phones a night. Holy smokes!

 

[pete2106]

79.8 million dollars worth of iPhones? that must have been about 6 iPhone X's.

 

[Rojaaemon]

I know smuggling is a bad thing, but that is so cool!

Smuggling is especially 'bad' when it's from the People's Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, I guess.

 

[Kabeyun]

Amazon beta testers.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Wow- what a story. Imagine the situation where it is deemed worth it to go to this much trouble and risk who knows what in China legal actions ("off with their heads?") for mobile phones. I know people will do just anything for a buck and this kind of seeming craziness is not just a China thing: look at how much money & activity, consumer willingness & risk, seller willingness & risk, is in the drug trade here in the US. I wonder how much longer it may take to get to a Star Trek ideal, encapsulated in these lines from First Contact...

Captain Picard: The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century.
Lily Sloane: No money? You mean, you don't get paid?
Picard: The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. Actually, we're all like yourself and Dr. Cochrane.

I wonder if the Picards of the 24th century will imagine people of the earliest 21st century beg, borrowing & stealing from each other in a relentless effort to end up with the most pieces of paper... or digits in a bank account entry... and laugh or see it as incredulous as we might imagine Caveman Grog trading a shiny rock for a mate or Indians selling all of Manhattan island for about $25 worth of beads.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Impressive. In the US we'd pay their bail, hire and encourage them with fat salaries, and just have our legal team keep a cautious eye on them.
[doublepost=1522422505][/doublepost]

I wonder how much longer it may take to get to a Star Trek ideal.

To get there you need to select people whose behavior isn't driven by brains soaked in testosterone. So you either need to build a separate society in Space, and probably create a barrier around earth to keep the aggressive thugs down on the surface, lest the brutish earthlings also make it into space and inevitably come after you when they destroy or deplete all their resources and become desperate (or drunk with power), or apply the big fix, and issue a germ-line gene therapy to the entire human race to change its brain chemistry permanently til everyones high on endorphins. Fill the air with it, piggybacked on common contagions. Just bliss the species out, whether they like it or not. Beforehand, you'd better set up some pretty solid automated sources for all the necessities, because blissed out lovebirds may still be creative, but they aren't going to produce the resources to sustain a population of Billions of mouths to feed.

Still, with each passing year, it's less of a science problem and just an engineering problem. And when you realize how few people are required to make the decision to disperse a contagion like that, and how many people in how many countries there are, and how there are more and more each year due to the advancements of the research & trickle-down tech, and what a great defensive weapon that would be if a foreign power is waging war on you, it's practically inevitable that the major turning point in this species is inevitable, and all the wonderfully savage primitive ape-like behavior we know and love and base our lives and economy around today will be looked at as a necessary but unfortunate dark period in our species history.

Before the Ai gets bored and quits and we all starve to death.

 

[Saipher]

Perhaps the first case of a drone mule on record? Well, I’m sure someone here will prove me wrong...

Welcome to the 21st century!

 

[friednoodles]

Smuggling is especially 'bad' when it's from the People's Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, I guess.

The people of Hong Kong sure aren't going to agree with you on that one...

 

[miguelsan22]

When is the movie coming out? I'd pay to see this.

 

[tzm41]

When will we see the news: "Officials use drones to catch drones smuggling drones".

 

[thisisnotmyname]

I don't understand the involvement of the 660 foot cables. At first I thought they were just using the drones to rig cables and then sending the phone along a zip line but the article talks about the drones carrying bags of iPhones. Where do the cables come into play?

 

[thadoggfather]

Why can’t apple use this as
Their next level distribution model from factory to consumers?

 

[justperry]

I don't understand the involvement of the 660 foot cables. At first I thought they were just using the drones to rig cables and then sending the phone along a zip line but the article talks about the drones carrying bags of iPhones. Where do the cables come into play?

Me too, I think it's what you suggested, a zip line, no way they can transport 10 iPhones in a few seconds with a drone.

 

[friednoodles]

I don't understand the involvement of the 660 foot cables.

The cables are hanging from the drones so that they don't have to come all the way down and land, which means the drones are further up and less likely to be heard. Edit: My theory is wrong! See HobeSoundDarryl's below!

 

[thisisnotmyname]

The cables are hanging from the drones so that they don't have to come all the way down and land, which means the drones are further up and less likely to be heard.

Ah ok, thank you!

 

[Krayzkat]

I would have thought smuggling iPhones out of mainland China into the 'westernised' old colonial Hong Kong would be a thing, not the other way about. Are iphones even more expensive in mainland China than elsewhere?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The cables are hanging from the drones so that they don't have to come all the way down and land, which means the drones are further up and less likely to be heard.

What single drone is going to have enough power to fly from Hong Kong to Shenzhen carrying a 660 ft cable with up to 10+ iPhones hanging from it at the bottom?

And getting past that issue, what if there is a little wind pushing on that super-long tether?

I suspect it's more toward the zip line concept. Drones take an end across to Shenzhen late at night. Phones are attached like clothes on a clothes line and "zipped" across. Then drones bring the end back to Hong Kong hiding the mode of transport. More toward this...

At the end of a 660ft tether, I'm envisioning people having to go to hospitals reporting getting hit by a bundle of iPhone boxes flying out of the sky, whacking them in the head and then flying back into the sky. Some gods revenge on our evil technology-embracing ways???

 

[gixxerfool]

What single drone is going to have enough power to fly from Hong Kong to Shenzhen carrying a 660 ft cable with up to 10+ iPhones hanging from it at the bottom?

And getting past that issue, what if there is a little wind pushing on that super-long tether?

I suspect it's more toward the zip line concept. Drones take an end across to Shenzhen late at night. Phones are attached like clothes on a clothes line and "zipped" across. Then drones bring the end back to Hong Kong hiding the mode of transport. More toward this...

At the end of a 660ft tether, I'm envisioning people having to go to hospitals reporting getting hit by a bundle of iPhone boxes flying out of the sky, whacking them in the head and then flying back into the sky. Some gods revenge on our evil technology-embracing ways???

This makes more sense. Ingenious nonetheless.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Where there's a dollar to be made, people find a way.

 

[liberte1776]

This is dumb, China just needs to lower the import taxes instead of making criminals out of people wanting more reasonably priced devices!

 

[dlucks]

A group of criminals in China were caught smuggling 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) worth of refurbished iPhones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen,

...so they could embed spyware in them.​

 

[friednoodles]

I suspect it's more toward the zip line concept. Drones take an end across to Shenzhen late at night. Phones are attached like clothes on a clothes line and "zipped" across. Then drones bring the end back to Hong Kong hiding the mode of transport.

Yep, you're right! Found a more detailed article:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201803/30/WS5abd8ceca3105cdcf6515417.html

According to the Shenzhen Customs Office, the suspects temporarily attached wires using flying drones to carry the wires from two rented rooms on the 25th floor of a residential building in Luohu district, Shenzhen, to a home in Lin Ma Hang village on the Hong Kong side. Their accomplices in the special administrative region then threaded the wires through a pulley placed on the rooftop of the home.

Once a bag was attached to the wires in Hong Kong, the Shenzhen operatives would use an electric winch to retract the wires. They worked from midnight to the early hours to avoid suspicion, and the two rooms were covered with carpets to reduce the noise of the motor.

 

[mabhatter]

Smuggling is especially 'bad' when it's from the People's Republic of China to the People's Republic of China, I guess.

Yeah, the iPhones are mostly MADE in China. So they’re literally smuggled BACK in.. why?
How is there an import tax for something made in the country? That’s insane. It goes to show how tightly China controls its internal consumers technology markets if something made at a factory there is more expensive than sold outside the country.