Guangzhou customs busts cotton smuggling ring

Guangzhou Customs busted a ring smuggling 410 million yuan ($67.12 million) worth of cotton, the largest cotton smuggling case through general trade in the country in recent years.

The ring imported more than 24,000 tons of low-grade raw cotton but declared the commodity as waste cotton and paid lower taxes, Cui Qingchao, deputy head of the anti-smuggling bureau at Guangzhou Customs, said at a press conference on Friday.

China became a net importer of cotton in 2001 and domestic raw cotton costs 7,200 yuan per ton more than the imported commodity.

Meanwhile, Guangzhou Customs cracked a gang that smuggled alcohol and cigarettes with a total value of 4.52 billion yuan through Vietnam.

The smuggled alcohol and cigarette products include those bearing foreign brands, those that were domestically-produced for overseas markets, exported and reimported and those authorized by domestic firms to be produced outside the country for overseas markets.

In the second kind of smuggling, the gang made money by evading the consumption taxes on domestically-sold products.

Guangzhou Customs launched a one-year campaign against smuggling of agricultural products in January as part of the national effort, cracking 92 cases with a combined value of 5.507 billion yuan.