Three iSmugglers who taped iPhones to their bodies while trying to enter mainland China via Shenshen were caught by customs officials at Luohu Port, Chinese state news agency China News reported on January 27, following the story of a man who was caught strapping 96 iPhones to his body.
The three suspects, all local Hong Kong women, were stopped by officers in early January, and two of them were second-time offenders, the report said. The first woman in her early 20s raised suspicions when she was spotted walking awkwardly on January 8, and a search revealed that she had taped 20 iPhones around her waist.
At the same border on January 10, another woman was found to have taped 26 iPhones to her body. Both of them were second-time offenders. Just a week after the second case, a third woman was caught with 23 iPhones, the report said.
Previously on January 10, a man was caught at the border after he was found to have taped 96 iPhones to his body, SCMP reported.
Apple’s iPhone sales in China are expected to surpass the US for the first time in history as analysts predict. UBS analysts told the Financial Times that China alone accounted for an estimated 36 percent of global iPhone shipments in the last quarter of 2014 compared with 24 per cent in the United States.
By the end of September last year, Chinese customs officials had seized more than 2,000 smuggled iPhone 6s within a just a week of its release.
