The would-be smuggler was a young woman crossing the border between Macau, an independent territory, and Zhuhai, a city in the Guangdong Province near Hong Kong (via mydrivers). She was passing through customs at the Gongbei Port when an official observed her acting strangely. The woman was walking through customs wearing a simple brown maternity dress when an official noticed that her posture was unusual for a pregnant woman (seemingly) in her third trimester. She was separated from the crowd and asked about her pregnancy, and she said she was 5-6 months pregnant despite looking like she was almost at her due date. They patted her down and discovered the prosthetic belly and the stash of hardware underneath it.
She had wrapped 202 CPUs and nine iPhones into bricks with cling film and bound them to herself above her abdomen using tape. In a photo of the goods shared on social media, the CPUs are identifiable as Intel models based on the LGA 1700 package, so either Alder Lake or Rocket Lake. The iPhones look like black models of the iPhone X or XS. If all of the CPUs are high-end, the total value could approach $100,000. Smuggling is a common occurrence on the Chinese border thanks to their high import taxes. Several would-be smugglers have tried to cross the border with CPUs and phones strapped to their bodies before. In March, a man with 160 CPUs and 16 folding phones was arrested at the Gongpei Port. The record for the most almost-smuggled CPUs is currently held by a pair of truck drivers returning from Hong Kong that had 256 processors strapped to their limbs between them, and the record for phones is 146 iPhones, also by a man coming from Hong Kong. It sounds like the Gongpei Port could use some metal detectors to deter wannabe smugglers. But as it stands, the only smugglers that have been caught have had either Intel CPUs or phones. If you’re looking to get a slice of the pie, consider taping some AMD Ryzen CPUs or some sticks of DDR5 to your stomach and trying your luck. Image credit: HKEPC
