Chinese Officials Discover Cache of 360 Intel CPUs Hidden in Bus
Front-side busted.
Chinese customs officers confiscated another sizable batch of undeclared PC components at the border between Hong Kong and mainland China. A cache of 360 Intel CPUs, found hidden inside the body of a cross-border bus, were reportedly seized by a subsidiary of Gongbei Customs earlier this month.
According to the report, the customs staff routinely scanned the body of a bus but noticed something "abnormal" about it. Further inspection uncovered a bounty of hidden Intel CPUs. The photo taken of the stash is so close it's a little difficult to decipher exactly where the CPUs were hidden, but they appear to have been stashed in a partition and/or seat support between the driver and passenger sections.
On the evidence table, we can see what looks like a haul of Raptor Lake (or possibly Alder Lake) processors that were smuggled into the bus in newspaper wrapping. The source images aren't quite sharp enough to read the CPU markings, but the chip size, proportions, and engravings all look to be contemporary.
The CPUs are neatly laid out on a 6 x 15 grid on a table, presumably four CPUs deep to make a total of 360 CPUs. Assuming these are middle-of-the-road Core i5-13400 CPUs, the total USD value of the haul would be upwards of $72,000. At that valuation, the smugglers would have dodged about $10,000 in duties — had they been successful, of course. Unfortunately, their gamble was unsuccessful and so they're facing a pretty big loss, plus the ire of the Chinese courts.
As mentioned above, smugglers are mostly inspired by the VAT differential: goods bought inside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) are zero-rated for tax. Meanwhile, on the mainland, the VAT for consumer goods is 13%. There's a big gray import market for tech in China, fed by these types of smuggling operations. The most popular gray imports are computer processors, SSDs, and GPUs — but buyers miss out on protections such as manufacturer warranties.
Hiding 360 Intel CPUs inside a bus isn't the biggest or most daring (stupid?) smuggling attempt we've seen fail in recent months. In late August we saw another bus-based smuggling attempt with 780 Intel processors hidden inside the engine of a cross-border bus. Similarly, modified cars, bikes, and scooters have been uncovered by keen-eyed customs officials. Some smugglers even attempt to make the move without a vehicle — stashing hundreds of CPUs or SSDs on their person and attempting to make it from Hong Kong or Macau to the mainland.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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Greg7579 Not interesting anymore. No one cares that every week (every day probably) Chinese smugglers get caught sneaking chips to other parts of China to avoid some kind of tax or fee something...Reply
In other news, last week my border in Texas had 3 billion dollars' worth of narcotics smuggled across it and none of it was confiscated by law enforcement. It's all on the street right now. -
purpleduggy some poor guy trying to feed his family. people only take risks like this in poverty. even that bus isnt a luxury one. meanwhile insider trading steals billions and makes thousands of people lose their life savings and zero consequences for them.Reply -
wbfox
Both products were designed in the US and made in China too!Greg7579 said:Not interesting anymore. No one cares that every week (every day probably) Chinese smugglers get caught sneaking chips to other parts of China to avoid some kind of tax or fee something...
In other news, last week my border in Texas had 3 billion dollars' worth of narcotics smuggled across it and none of it was confiscated by law enforcement. It's all on the street right now.
Agree this chip smuggling interdiction propaganda thing is more than a bit old. -
Chrisweasel1981
Well, if Americans weren't buying. Also when has prohibition ever worked?Greg7579 said:Not interesting anymore. No one cares that every week (every day probably) Chinese smugglers get caught sneaking chips to other parts of China to avoid some kind of tax or fee something...
In other news, last week my border in Texas had 3 billion dollars' worth of narcotics smuggled across it and none of it was confiscated by law enforcement. It's all on the street right now.