According to reports, during the early investigation, investigators found that Guo and others opened a shop in a prosperous area of ​​Xiamen, specializing in selling high-end watches and other luxury goods. They also often posted pictures and videos of various watches on WeChat M

Haixi Morning News Reporter Bai Ruoxue Correspondent Zhang Ying

Xiamen Customs successfully uncovered a major case of high-end watch smuggling by "water pirates". Photo provided by Customs

WeChat has become an important way for people to communicate, but some criminals have a "crooked idea" and use WeChat to sell smuggled high-end watches. Recently, Xiamen Customs successfully uncovered a major case of high-end watch smuggling by "water pirates" with a value of up to 200 million yuan.

htmlAt 7:00 on November 18, Xiamen Customs carried out simultaneous arrest and seizure operations in Xiamen, Quanzhou, Longyan, Zhangzhou and other places in Fujian Province, and successfully eliminated 4 high-end watch smuggling gangs, arrested 19 suspects, seized more than 8.5 million yuan in cash, and froze 315 funds involved in the case. Ten thousand yuan, 141 suspected smuggled high-end watches such as Richard Mille, Patek Philippe and were seized at the scene.

According to reports, the investigators found during the early investigation that Guo and others opened a shop in a prosperous area of ​​ Xiamen, specializing in selling high-end watches and other luxury goods. They also often posted pictures and videos of various watches in WeChat Moments and short video platforms. Some of them were new watches worth millions of yuan, but there was no record of customs declaration and import. They were probably smuggled into the country through illegal channels.

After continuous investigation, Xiamen Customs gradually figured out the modus operandi of the smuggling gang: "buyers" purchase high-end watches through counters or second-hand channels in countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, and then transport the watches to Hong Kong or Macau, where they are smuggled into the country through Guangdong-Hong Kong brand cars.

According to reports, in order to evade capital monitoring, smugglers pay for goods in cash or virtual currencies such as TEDA coins when delivering overseas; after entering the country, they use other people's identities and false addresses to mail them to sales gangs in Xiamen. After the

watch entered the country, the gang published advertisements in Moments or fixed "WeChat groups" and conducted online negotiations. The gang can even "one-to-one customization", purchasing designated brands or styles of watches overseas according to customer requirements and then smuggling them into the country.

At present, the case is under further investigation.