Hong Kong customs has seized more than five tonnes of coral groupers from a cross-border smuggling ring, in what a senior officer described as the biggest seizure of its kind in the city.
Eight people were arrested for their alleged role in the syndicate, which used speedboats to carry huge quantities of fish into mainland China, seeking to evade hefty taxes, a Hong Kong customs official said on Thursday.
The HK$1 million (US$128,000) haul, imported to the city by air from the Philippines and Indonesia and bound for the Port of Yantian in Shenzhen, was seized at a pier in Sha Tau Kok, near the border, while being loaded onto a speedboat at about 10am on Wednesday.
Customs officers also intercepted seven other speedboats that were scheduled to illegally deliver more than 2,000 large fish to Shenzhen.
Superintendent Wan Hing-chuen, of the Customs and Excise Department’s syndicate crimes investigation bureau, said the haul was the biggest seizure of its kind.
Officers arrested eight local men, aged from 36 to 54, and seized six goods vehicles in the vicinity and at a nearby fish market.
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