Smugglers hid 780 Intel processors bus engine and tried to smuggle them into China

Smugglers tried to smuggle 780 Intel computer processors (worth about $137,000) hidden in a bus engine into the country through China's Gongbei port, but the customs service prevented the attempt, Wccftech reports.

This trick of the smugglers could have succeeded because the metal detectors had not caught anything strange. However, the customs officers were confused by the X-ray images of the bus and therefore searched the it only to find out that there are Intel processors hidden in the engine. It is not mentioned what model the processors were.

Wccftech explains that there is a huge black market for computer electronics in China, where the same Intel processors can be bought for much less than the store price. In order to avoid all kinds of duties, smugglers develop various and ingenious schemes for the transportation of such components.

For example, in December 2022, at the same Gongbei port, customs officials arrested a woman who pretended to be pregnant on her way back to China, while it turned out that there were hundreds of Intel Alder Lake processors in a silicon bag that she was trying to smuggle across the border.

In May this year, another such incident took place in Hong Kong, when customs officers found 70 pieces of smuggled Nvidia Quadro K2200 video cards hidden in a cargo of 280 kg of live lobsters on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge. Additionally, there were no accompanying documents neither for the lobsters nor the video cards. The contraband was valued at $76,500.

In June, customs officers at the same checkpoint found 6,000 microSD cards in the chassis of a bicycle, and another citizen tried to smuggle 84 Kingston NVMe SSD drives hidden in the steering wheel chassis of a Yadea KS electric scooter.

Recently, another attempt had been made to smuggle 240 Intel Raptor Lake processors through this checkpoint, in a unique way: the man had taped them to his body and legs. Another man had tried to move 239 Intel Core i5-13400F processors in the same way.