BEIJING:Officials on Chinas border with Hong Kong caught a smuggler with 96 iPhones strapped to his body like a hi-tech suit of armour.
The man caught the attention of inspectors at the Futian crossing in Shenzhen, a southern Chinese metropolis bordering Hong Kong, when he walked like someone carrying a heavy load despite appearing to travel light, customs officials were quoted CNN on Tuesday.
Although the officials didnt find anything suspicious in the mans luggage, they made him walk through a metal detector, which produced an alarm.
They discovered the 12kg contraband, iPhone 5, 5S, 6 and 6 Plus models wrapped in clear plastic and taped to his chest, abdomen, thighs and calves, the state-run newspaper Peoples Daily reported.
The phones have been seized and are currently being held by customs officials.
The latest batch of iPhones have been available in China for months, but smuggling is still common for stolen phones, which are often easier to fence in Asia. Beijings taxation policies make the device more expensive on the mainland than in Hong Kong and the west.
Customs officials said the man from Hong Kong was a typical smuggler with a record of past offences.
The maximum penalty in Hong Kong for exporting items without properly declaring them is a 1.3 million fine and seven years in prison.
In the past month, customs officials in two main Hong Kong-China border crossings uncovered 18 cases of smugglers strapping items to their bodies, the newspaper reported.
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