Drones used to smuggle $80M in smartphones

Chinese authorities say they’ve busted a crime ring that used a system of drones, cables and motorized pulleys to sneak nearly $80 million worth of smartphones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, in what is said to be the country’s first known cross-border smuggling operation involving drones.

In Shenzhen, a major technology hub sometimes referred to as China’s Silicon Valley, authorities arrested 26 suspects and seized two drones and thousands of iPhones, state media and Reuters reported. In Hong Kong, customs officers arrested three suspects and seized another 900 smartphones, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The joint sting operation was conducted in February but the details weren’t released until Friday.

“It’s the first case found in China that drones were being used in cross-border smuggling crimes,” reported the state-owned Legal Daily.

Authorities said the suspects were members of several gangs who worked under the cover of darkness to surreptitiously move huge volumes of undeclared, refurbished iPhones and other devices across the border.

One group would set up in a pair of high rise condos in Shenzhen and use drones to fly cables over a border fence to another group on the roof of a village house about 660 feet away in Hong Kong, according to state media.