Smugglers in China Use Drones to Transport iPhones Across Border From Hong Kong, Earning Millions

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Smugglers in China Use Drones to Transport iPhones Across Border From Hong Kong, Earning Millions
theepochtimes.com: Smugglers in China Use Drones to Transport iPhones Across Border From Hong Kong, Earning Millions
By Reuters
April 2, 2018 6:12 pm Last Updated: April 2, 2018 7:16 pm

A drone that was confiscated after Chinese authorities arrested suspects who used drones to smuggle iPhones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, pictured in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province in China on March 29, 2018. (Liu Youzhi/Southern Metropolis Daily via Reuters)

BEIJING—Customs officers in southern China’s tech hub Shenzhen busted a group of criminals using drones to smuggle 500 million yuan ($79.8 million) worth of smartphones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, the state-run newspaper Legal Daily reported on March 30.
Authorities arrested 26 suspects who used drones to fly two 200-meter (660-feet) cables between Hong Kong and the mainland to transport refurbished iPhones with a total value of 500 million yuan, the paper said in a report on the crackdown by Shenzhen and Hong Kong customs. The two cities border each other.

Cables used by the smugglers to transport the iPhones. (Screenshot via Sina.com)
“It’s the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes,” the Legal Daily reported, citing a news conference held by Shenzhen customs on March 29.
The smugglers usually operated after midnight and only needed seconds to transport small bags holding 20 iPhones, according to the report. The gang could smuggle as many as 15,000 phones across the border in one night, it said.
The Shenzhen customs authorities estimated that the smugglers could earn tens of millions of yuan in a month.
Regulating the use of drones has become an important task for China, the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer drones.
China published strict rules last year to tackle incidents of drones straying into aircraft flight paths, including requiring owners of civilian drones to register with local authorities if they own craft up to a certain weight.
From Reuters. Epoch Times staff member Annie Wu contributed to this report.

 

[L0ckJaw]

Drones from AliExpress

 

[Deleted member 65228]

This does not surprise me one bit.

We already know that everything good can be abused for bad; when a criminal has their eye on something and see's potential abuse to generate profit then they are bound to take that opportunity - especially when the riskiness is low in comparison to other approaches like possessing the smart-phones while going across the border where they are disallowed.

It was only a matter of time until drones were abused for something like this and I suspect that they have been used for much worse, not to mention that they can be used to invade on people's privacy. They can still be used for good though - it isn't our fault if a criminal abuses it for bad, it's only the criminals fault for their actions from my perspective.

I think this will progress to the networks being used by drones to receive co-ordinates becoming subverted by criminals to steal packages and control where drones locate to, overriding received co-ordinates/controls, even from a remote control.

 

[TheJokerz]

Now that is pretty darn funny. Anyone watch Trailer Park Boys? The swazie express!!