Shenzhen Customs had broken up a smuggling ring involving 518 million yuan (US$62.6 million), it was announced Tuesday.

The ring, allegedly led by a Hong Kong man surnamed Yang, was accused of smuggling more than 1,250 tons of bonded furs in two years, evading 133 million yuan in tax.

By September, all seven members of the gang had been caught. The Anti-smuggling Bureau of Shenzhen Customs said prosecutors were ready to take the charges to court.

Yang allegedly transported bonded furs imported by two factories to another and sold them for profit. The three factories were all under his control.

The case emerged in September 2003, when customs officials found a list of imported goods for a clothing factory named Zhicheng carried seals of a company named Meiyi and a clothing factory called Xinmeiyi. The contract number was also Xinmeiyi's.

After checking documents, customs officials found Zhicheng and Xinmeiyi had been importing the same raw materials. Some bonded materials worth 450,000 yuan went missing at Zhicheng, which the factory could not explain. Zhicheng was a small factory with 18 workers and 500-square-meter workshop, but had been importing a lot of expensive furs like cowhide and sheepskin.

Xinmeiyi mainly manufactured summer clothes for aged women and no furs were found at the factory in Buji in Longgang District. In November 2003, the factory was closed and the boss, Yang, disappeared.

In April this year, a truck driver who used to work for Xinmeiyi was detained. He told anti-smuggling officers that he had carried the bonded furs directly to another clothing factory named Hengfa, also in Longgang.

Yang, a native of Fujian Province, was caught when returning to Shenzhen from Hong Kong on May 4. He said he planned to deal with problems when customs officials were on holiday.

Another two drivers and three factory chiefs were caught later.

It turned out that Yang set up Meiyi and Xinmeiyi, and then set up Hengfa in the name of a Fujian man and set up Zhicheng in the name of his mother. Bonded materials for Meiyi and Xinmeiyi went to Hengfa and were sold.

Source: Shenzhen Daily