The Macau Customs Service said in a statement last night that that its officers caught two local parallel traders earlier this week who were using a car parked in a public car park as a goods collection point with the intention of smuggling goods to Zhuhai on foot.
According to the statement, the Macau Customs Service had recently received a report from a resident who said that a number of people were engaging in parallel-trading activities in a public car park in the peninsula’s northern district.
According to the statement, customs officers discovered that the two parallel traders drove a car loaded with goods into the car park from where they picked up a small quantity of goods each time and carried them to Zhuhai via the Barrier Gate border checkpoint in order to evade the two cities’ customs checks. In Chinese smuggling jargon, this kind of activity is known as “ants moving home” tactics. Parallel traders are known as “water goods travellers” in the jargon.
The statement said that on Tuesday customs officers who put the car park under surveillance saw the two parallel traders picking up some goods from a car. The officers informed their colleagues at the Barrier Gate checkpoint to check the duo once they appeared there. Soon afterwards, customs officers at the checkpoint found six video game consoles and 26 video game discs, worth a total of 25,000 patacas, in the duo’s luggage when they were leaving Macau.
The duo, a couple aged 59 and 57, failed to present any valid declaration documents for the export of the goods. They admitted to engaging in parallel-trading activities, in which they delivered goods by car to the car park and used the car as a “mobile goods collection point”, from which they picked up a small quantity of goods each time and carried them to Zhuhai, according to the statement.
The statement did not identify the car park.
The statement said that it was the first time that local customs officers have busted parallel traders collecting goods from a car “used as a mobile parallel-trading goods collection point”.
The statement said that with constantly changing modes of parallel-trading activities, the Customs Service will adjust its tactics to combat and investigate the activities from time to time. The statement also said that the customs rely on information provided by residents to help towards their success in combating parallel-trading activities.
This handout photo provided by the Macau Customs Service last night shows two customs officers escorting a female parallel trader to a car in a public car park in the peninsula’s northern district on Tuesday which was used as a parallel goods collection point.
This handout photo provided by the Macau Customs Service yesterday shows game consoles and game discs seized from a local couple who carried the goods from a car parked in a public car park near the Barrier Gate by foot through the checkpoint en route to Zhuhai on Tuesday. They were intercepted by local customs officers at the Barrier Gate checkpoint before reaching Zhuhai.
