This month, a Chinese schoolgirl was nabbed, smuggling not one iPhone, not two iPhone, but twenty-five. Chinese custom authorities discovered the high school senior was moonlighting as a smuggling mule.
According to a recently released report, the girl was picked up on March 13. She arose suspicions, because apparently, unlike other Chinese schoolgirls, she wasn't chatty and bubbly. But rather, she kept her head lowered and seemed uncomfortable. Customs officials thought something was up and carried out a security search, discovering that she had a waist belt with 21 iPhones in it. She also had two iPhones strapped to each calf.
When custom officials caught the schoolgirl redhanded, she started sobbing, repeatedly saying, "Don't tell my parents and my teachers."
The girl would cross the Sha Tau Kok Control Point—the immigration between Hong Kong and mainland China—to attend school in Shenzhen, China.
A smuggler approached the girl on the way to cram school and asked her if she wanted to make some extra cash. For each phone she smuggled into China, where the iPhone is incredibly popular and manufactured, she would get the equivalent of approximately US$1.50.
Schoolgirls make ideal mules, because they look so innocuous—save, I guess, for when they're depressed and on edge. Still, this probably isn't the first kid to pick up some extra change smuggling in hardware, and it probably won't be the last.
高３女子、ｉＰｈｏｎｅ２５台体に巻き付け密輸試み捕まる―中国 [Searchina]
(Top photo: Youku)