Shanghai jails Yangtze River oil smugglers

Shanghai prosecutors have started handing down prison sentences for smuggling diesel and oil products and trying to conceal the crimes.

Police busted 35 diesel and oil smuggling cases worth 60 million yuan ($8.6 million) on the Shanghai section of the Yangtze River last year, prosecutors and police said at a news conference on Friday.

The cases were detected during an eight-month police campaign along a 125-kilometer stretch of the river.

In November, the Shanghai Huangpu district people's procuratorate gave three men involved in the first of the smuggling cases penalties of up to four years' prison and fines of 20,000 yuan each.

The three men illegally transported refined oil products totaling 250 metric tons on a cargo ship. They were detected by police on waters near Shanghai Pudong International Airport on April 9, and were found to have previously leaked diesel into waters near Shanghai Waigaoqiao container terminal, contaminating an area of 120 square meters.

In the past, similar offenders would have received an administrative penalty, involving fines and confiscation of the oil products.

The district procuratorate said it was the first time such violators had received jail terms for covering up or concealing crimes. The harsher penalties were intended to deter similar violations and help preserve the environment of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

"Moreover, the cargo ships involved in the case were also confiscated by the court for the first time to increase the cost of committing the crime," said Bai Yingxi, deputy chief procurator of the district procuratorate.

Violators used to receive fines as an administrative penalty, but could easily make hundreds of thousands of yuan from each smuggling of goods.

Bai said that the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court in October clarified that several activities related to smuggling constituted intentionally committing a crime.

These included; using a fake ship license, turning off GPS systems to dodge supervision from shipping authorities, transporting oil products at unreasonable times and on unreasonable routes, and using bank accounts of third parties to claim payments.

Nine of the cases detected from April to December, which involve 31 people, have been prosecuted.

Most of them clearly knew the diesel products came from irregular sources, navigated during the night, hid diesel barrels under sacks, and threw their cellphones into the sea to destroy records when police approached, the prosecuting agency said.

Shi Guorong, head of the criminal detection team of the Shanghai branch of the Yangtze River Shipping Public Security Bureau, said that most of the diesel was smuggled from overseas. The ship owners did not have licenses to conduct refined oil business or permits to transport dangerous goods.