Smuggling In The News

Chinese authorities have announced a crackdown on smuggling in Shanghai. The budding entrepreneurs had discovered a lucrative market for their smuggled goods. The report does not explain is how these just managed to sneak the merchandise into the country. After all, pianos aren't exactly easy to disguise.

Police discovered a cache of nearly 5,000 unsold pianos, the China Daily said Wednesday. The smugglers are suspected of being instrumental in making tens of millions of yuan selling the contraband, giving the illegal ivory trade a whole new meaning.

"Customs officials said the smugglers had probably managed to dodge some 10 million yuan ($1.3 million) worth of taxes and seriously disrupted the piano market in Shanghai," the paper said.

Shanghai piano dealers had noticed that second-hand pianos from abroad with low marked prices had been dominating the market "leading customs to suspect that the whole industry was in collusion with smugglers," the paper said.

Believe it or not, that isn't even the strange smuggling story of the day, either. Closer to home, the US Border Patrol discovered a shipment of stolen wedding dresses. 1,000 wedding dresses, in fact. Which, in and of itself is bad enough, but the dresses were stolen from a breast cancer foundation.

The donated dresses were on their way to Los Angeles to a fundraiser for the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation in November when they were stolen in Scottsdale, Arizona, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said.

Inspectors in southern Arizona recovered the dresses late last week when they inspected a tractor trailer that had been denied entry to Nogales, Mexico, by Mexican customs officials.

Police discovered the gowns, which have an estimated value of $3 million, and arrested the driver. It was not immediately clear if the driver was a U.S. or Mexican citizen.

Pretty low thing to do.