Three school dropouts aged between 16 and 17 were hired by a gang to smuggle old computer parts and other electronic products from Macau to Zhuhai, the Judiciary Police (PJ) and the Macau Customs Service jointly announced last night after raiding a parallel-trading den earlier yesterday.
The gang provided school uniforms for the trio and other teenage dropouts to wear while smuggling goods.
According to last night’s joint announcement, PJ and customs officers raided the den in an industrial building yesterday after the three male teenagers, dressed in school uniforms, were intercepted at the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Tuesday when they were together attempting to smuggle old central processing units (CPUs) worth 700,000 patacas in total to the mainland.
The officers seized old computer parts and other electronic products worth 17 million patacas in total in the den. At the time of the announcement last night, the authorities were still looking for the criminals who hired the three teenagers.
Senior officers from the two law enforcement agencies briefed reporters on site at the raided parallel-trading den about the case at about 8:30 p.m.
The den was located at Keck Seng Industrial Centre (激成工業中心) on Avenida de Venceslau de Morais (慕拉士大馬路).
According to last night’s announcement, the Judiciary Police launched an investigation into the case after receiving a report from a school about several teenagers dressed in school uniforms smoking near the Barrier Gate checkpoint and possibly engaging in parallel-trading activities.
On Tuesday afternoon, PJ officers saw that the three teenagers, at that time not wearing school uniforms, were entering Keck Seng Industrial Centre. After a while, they left the building, dressed in school uniforms, and got into a taxi en route to the Barrier Gate checkpoint.
The Judiciary Police reported the situation to the Macau Customs Service, after which customs officers intercepted the trio when they were crossing the Barrier Gate checkpoint en route to the mainland. The officers seized 552 old CPUs, worth 700,000 patacas in total, from them, which were taped to their calves.
According to last night’s announcement, PJ and customs officers later identified a unit in the industrial building as a parallel-trading den and raided it yesterday, where they seized around 20,000 pieces of old computer parts and other electronic products, worth 17 million patacas in total.
In addition, according to last night’s announcement, the officers also seized over 40 school uniforms in the unit, believing that the gang provided teenage dropouts with the uniforms so that they could wear them to pretend to be students while smuggling goods with the aim of avoiding detection by law enforcement officers.
According to the announcements, the three teenagers were each paid 200 yuan (219 patacas) each time they smuggled old electronic products from the parallel-trading den to the mainland.
The police have meanwhile contacted the parents or legal guardians of the three teenagers.
Boxes of old computer parts and other electronic products are displayed by the Macau Customs Service in the raided parallel-trading den at Keck Seng Industrial Centre on Avenida de Venceslau de Morais last night. – Photo: MPDG
