A CRIMINAL group suspected of using another enterprise’s permits to smuggle solid waste was busted by Shenzhen Customs recently.

The group was caught during a large-scale special crackdown carried out by customs and allegedly smuggled waste plastics and other solid waste weighing more than 1.5 tons.

During an enterprise inspection conducted by Shenzhen Customs in July this year, it was discovered that a plastics company had declared 32 imported containers of waste plastics, but the goods were not actually transported to the company’s factory, which raised the inspectors’ suspicions. The anti-smuggling department quickly launched an investigation based on the existing evidence and eventually detected the smuggling network that was mainly operated by the plastics company and two plastics factories.

On Thursday morning, customs’ anti-smuggling department dispatched more than 350 officers divided into 25 groups who carried out crackdowns in four provinces, including Guangdong, Hubei, Sichuan and Gansu. As of 10 a.m. that day, 20 suspects from three solid waste smuggling gangs were caught for allegedly smuggling more than 1.5 tons of solid waste.

After a preliminary investigation, the smuggling network was found to be very intricate, involving overseas orders, trans-shipment in Hong Kong, customs clearance and domestic logistics. The owner of the goods ordered the waste plastics from Japan through a “shadow company” in Hong Kong, and then handed them over to the gangs for smuggling and used another enterprise’s permits to import the waste from checkpoints in Guangzhou. The smuggled waste plastics were transported to unlicensed enterprises in Shenzhen, Huizhou and other cities for processing.

(Zhang Yu)