Chinese language customs has uncovered somebody attempting to smuggle SSDs into the nation inside an e-scooter. Now I do know what you are considering, there’s not a lot area for something inside an e-scooter’s compact body, however you would be mistaken. And it is that form of considering that the smugglers thought would get them throughout the border home-free. Alas, it did not.
Qingmao Customs seized a scooter with 84 M.2 SSDs saved within the upright between the scooter’s handlebars and entrance wheel, in an try and bypass Chinese language import obligation or restrictions on the Zhuhai-Macao Cross-Border Industrial Zone (by way of WCCFTech (opens in new tab)). The scooter was noticed because it was pushed via an X-ray scanner.
“At about 13:00 on March 3, a mainland passenger pushed an electrical scooter to enter the nation via the ‘non-declaration channel’ on the particular port of the cross-border industrial zone,” a launch (opens in new tab) says. “It handed the electrical scooter via the machine for inspection, and the passing machine picture confirmed that there was an enormous unknown object on the entrance bumper of the electrical scooter.
“After dismantling the entrance bumper, 84 Kingston model solid-state drives hidden within the axle tube had been seized, and the case has been additional handled in accordance with laws.”
You may really watch a clip of the would-be smuggler making the try and get the SSDs via customs earlier than getting caught red-handed. The SSDs are faraway from the scooter proper earlier than their eyes.
The drives are manufactured by Kingston, nonetheless, it is powerful to make out the precise mannequin as a result of high quality of the pictures.
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The Zhuhai area of China surrounds Macao, which is a Particular Administrative Area of the Individuals’s Republic of China. This zone is famous as a busy spot for import and export into the realm and wider nation, and it neighbours the opposite main commerce hub of Hong Kong by way of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. It was really in Zhuhai the place customs officers discovered a smuggler trying to deliver 200 CPUs into the nation (opens in new tab) underneath the guise of being pregnant, stuffing them underneath a prosthetic.
Chinese language customs have discovered all types of {hardware} smuggled into the nation in bizarre methods. Final yr one man tried to stroll 160 CPUs into the nation (opens in new tab) taped to his physique, however was busted for his irregular stroll. You’d assume that’d be the very first thing you’d grasp earlier than trying to smuggle items. One other case noticed $3 million value of AMD GPUs (opens in new tab) tried to be introduced into the nation, however reasonably than strap 5,840 GPUs to some poor soul these had been simply mislabelled on the field they had been despatched in.
