Gongbei customs announced in a statement yesterday that a woman was attempting to smuggle 52 tubes of lipstick from Macau to the mainland via the Qingmao joint checkpoint last Thursday.
According to the statement, the woman, who was entering the mainland through “the nothing to declare” channel in the early hours of last Thursday, did not put her bag on the X-ray machine for inspection, while she also “deliberately” covered her abdomen with her hands.
Consequently, the statement said, customs officers intercepted her and seized 16 tubes of lipstick from her bag and another 36 fastened around her waist.
The statement did not elaborate on the woman’s identity, such as her age and domicile.
The statement underlined that evading customs supervision by concealing items that are subject to duty payments when entering or leaving the mainland constitutes the offence of smuggling, adding that serious circumstances constitute a crime.
Meanwhile, the Macau Customs Service said in a statement yesterday that its officers raided a parallel-trading den on Tuesday in the peninsula’s northern district where they seized about 7,500 old electronic parts worth around 50,000 patacas in total.
According to the statement, the officers caught a 34-year-old local man who operated the den and hired parallel traders to smuggle second-hand electronic parts to the mainland.
This undated handout photo released by Gongbei customs yesterday shows the seized boxes of lipstick.
