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xinhua news agency, guangzhou, september 5 (reporter chen yuxuan, xiong feng, mao siqian) purchasing beef tripe and beef tripe abroad, illegally smuggling them ashore, replacing them with fake packaging and sending them to the market... in a large-scale cross-border smuggling of frozen products case uncovered by public security organs in guangdong and other places, the criminal gang has been involved in smuggling frozen products for a total amount of more than 1 billion yuan since 2016.

since august last year, the ministry of public security has jointly deployed with relevant departments to carry out special operations to combat maritime smuggling crimes across the country. so far, more than 1,000 maritime smuggling cases of various types have been cracked. recently, the ministry of public security announced 10 typical cases of special operations to combat maritime smuggling crimes, and the smuggling of frozen products was included in them. how are illegal frozen products smuggled into the country? how are they distributed and circulated in the country? why is the smuggling of frozen products so persistent despite repeated bans? the reporter launched an investigation into this.

two large trucks lead to a major smuggling case

on the evening of april 13, 2023, a fishing boat with an unusual route in the waters of jiangmen, guangdong, attracted the attention of the public security authorities. based on comprehensive analysis, the jiangmen police suspected that the boat was suspected of smuggling, and immediately organized police forces to arrest the fishing boat when it docked, and seized 18.9 tons of smuggled frozen products such as beef tripe.

according to the confession of the arrested personnel at the scene, there were two large red trucks waiting to receive the goods on the shore, and this clue attracted great attention from the public security organs. "the presence of trucks waiting to receive the goods indicates that there is a clear sales channel, which is worth further investigation," said chen shaohua, the leader of the anti-smuggling detachment of the jiangmen public security bureau.

subsequently, the public security authorities seized one of the red trucks in haiyan town, jiangmen, arrested three suspects on the spot, and seized 3.6 tons of frozen products. at the same time, they found another truck heading towards guizhou. with the cooperation of the local public security authorities, the truck was seized at a highway service area in chishui, guizhou.

the clues given by the two truck drivers pointed to the same person, wu mouqiang. the jiangmen city public security bureau anti-smuggling brigade determined that the fishing boats and related personnel and frozen products seized this time were just the "tip of the iceberg", and there was probably a huge smuggling criminal gang headed by wu mouqiang behind them.

in response, the public security organs quickly launched a major case attack mechanism. the public security organs at the guangdong provincial and jiangmen municipal levels jointly established a special smuggling task force and worked closely with the hong kong police. the task force targeted 10 foreign personnel in the upstream of the smuggling chain, dug deep into the sales channels in the downstream of the smuggling chain, targeted 4 major cargo owners in the country, and found out the organizational structure of the entire cross-border smuggling gang.

public security authorities discovered that the smuggling gang’s cash flow in the past year was as high as 2 billion yuan, of which 800 million yuan was from the purchase and sale of frozen products by cargo owners alone.

in september 2023, the public security organs of guangdong, sichuan, chongqing, guangxi, beijing, zhejiang, henan and the hong kong police simultaneously closed in and arrested 218 people involved in the case, including organizers, destroyed 21 smuggling freezers and warehouses, investigated and dealt with 14 domestic food processing companies in accordance with the law, and seized 26 smuggling boats and more than 1,300 tons of frozen products.

clear division of labor and hidden crimes

after the "customer" places an order, some people are responsible for ordering and collecting goods abroad, some are responsible for logistics transit, and some are responsible for secondary processing and repackaging within the country... it seems that the gang is doing a regular "overseas shopping" business.

in fact, according to the police officers in charge of the case, this smuggling criminal gang is well organized, with clear division of labor, concealed crimes and strong anti-detection awareness; wu mouqiang is the leader in the country, and liang mouwen is the leader abroad. the two are responsible for the overall command of the entire smuggling activity, and they cooperate with each other at home and abroad to form a "black industry chain" for frozen product smuggling.

——searching for sources and purchasing at low prices. when they received wu mouqiang's purchase request, lun moulan and lai mouna used a trading company in hong kong as a cover to search for sources around the world, purchased frozen products such as beef tripe, beef tripe, and chicken feet at low prices, and shipped them to the port of hong kong.

- transfer at sea and smuggle into the country. liang mouwen was responsible for organizing the mother ship to transfer the frozen products from the hong kong port to the waters at the junction of guangdong and hong kong. chen mouhuan, wang moupeng and others organized speedboats and fishing boats to transfer the frozen products from the mother ship and then smuggle them ashore from zhuhai, jiangmen, maoming and other places in guangdong province and illegally enter the country.

- repackaging and distribution nationwide. liang mouwen organized the transportation of illegally imported frozen products to food processing plants or warehouses to centrally repack. wu mouqiang organized a freight team to transport the disguised frozen products by land to domestic cargo owners he mouyou and liao mou; they used food processing companies as a cover to process the purchased smuggled frozen products and make huge profits.

at the same time, yang moubo's money laundering gang was responsible for using underground banks abroad to launder smuggled funds.

chen yuan, chief of the case section of the action investigation division of the anti-smuggling bureau of the guangdong provincial public security department, said that in the process of combating smuggling cases, we can often only combat one or even several links of smuggling, such as seizing operating speedboats and fishing boats, seizing a small amount of items, and arresting several people involved in the case who were responsible for transportation. however, this case has achieved a full-chain and full-link attack on the smuggling gangs, mastered the "ecosystem" of smuggling crimes bypassing customs in guangdong-hong kong waters, effectively cut off the "black industry chain" of smuggled frozen products, and played a deterrent role in smuggling crimes.

maintaining market circulation order and "food safety"

chen liting, head of the food risk monitoring section of jiangmen customs, said that the smuggling of frozen products not only evades taxes and seriously disrupts the order of the domestic frozen food trading market, but also greatly increases the risk of disease transmission without inspection and quarantine, posing a huge threat to my country's animal epidemic prevention and control and food safety.

it is understood that the transportation tools for smuggling frozen products are mostly ordinary ships and trucks. in order to evade inspection, they are generally only modified with simple insulation. after more than ten hours or even dozens of hours of long-distance transportation, frozen products are very likely to breed bacteria.

the reporter found that, judging from the cases currently being cracked, the huge profits from smuggling frozen products have prompted criminals to take risks.

yao yuxiang, a third-level police sergeant of the anti-smuggling detachment of the jiangmen public security bureau, did some calculations for the reporter: generally speaking, a container of smuggled frozen goods can hold 25 tons of goods. take beef tripe as an example. the domestic purchase price of one ton of beef tripe is between 70,000 and 90,000 yuan, while the cost of smuggling is 40,000 yuan. this means that for every ton of beef tripe smuggled, about 40,000 yuan of illegal income can be obtained; for every container smuggled, about 1 million yuan of profit can be made.

criminals have a strong sense of anti-detection. in this case, the criminals kept changing their communication methods, hiding their identities and itineraries in an attempt to make it difficult to solve the case.

in the face of maritime smuggling crimes, a relevant person in charge of the criminal investigation bureau of the ministry of public security stated that the ministry of public security will further strengthen overall coordination, work closely with relevant departments, highlight key crackdowns, strengthen special project attacks, maintain a high-pressure crackdown on maritime smuggling crimes, and resolutely maintain market circulation order and consumers' "food safety."

the police reminded that catering businesses must operate in good faith and in accordance with the law, and must not purchase and use smuggled frozen products in pursuit of profit; when consumers purchase frozen products, if they find any suspicious clues, they should report them to the public security organs in a timely manner.