ONE of the seven officers from Huanggang Customs who have been on trial over charges of bribery accused higher-ranking customs officials of passing the buck after a pearl-smuggling case involving over 20 million yuan (US$3.2 million) was exposed.

    The seven officers, who worked in the sixth division of the logistics monitoring department at Huanggang Checkpoint, allegedly solicited money from logistics companies in return for facilitating smuggling and other illegal activities.

    According to the prosecutors, the officers charged 6,000 yuan for each truck crossing the border to places within Guangdong Province and 10,000 yuan for each truck heading out of the province, earlier reports by Chinese-language newspapers said.

    One officer, Chen Bin, who was once vice director of the sixth division, admitted at Monday’s court hearing to soliciting bribes from pearl smugglers. However, Chen accused the anti-smuggling department of Huanggang Customs of colluding with smugglers and accepting bribes from them.

    The logistics monitoring officers, including Chen, told the court that they only did what their superiors told them to do.

    Chen said leaders of the logistics monitoring department and the anti-smuggling department passed the buck after the pearl-smuggling case was exposed.

    Another officer on trial, Qiu Bozhen, also expressed doubts about the anti-smuggling department, according to the report on yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily.

    A jewelry company mixed smuggled pearls with jewelry that was slated for exhibition in Hong Kong and tried to transport them back into the mainland without paying taxes in June 2012, according to the prosecutor.

    The smuggled pearls were discovered by Chen and his colleagues. However, the jewelry company paid more than 4 million yuan to grease the palms of the anti-smuggling officials.

    Chen and his colleagues didn’t conduct an investigation. Instead, they transferred the six cases of pearls — allegedly as required by an official in the anti-smuggling department — to the anti-smuggling department. The department allegedly later released the pearls, the court heard. (Martin Li, Huang Wentao)