CENTRAL: 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.
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.
