A man was recently caught at China’s Qingmao port attempting to smuggle CPUs into China. Though not the first attempt at smuggling PC parts into China, this latest attempt was a particularly gutsy try, as the smuggler was apprehended with no less than 306 CPUs strapped to his body.
Smuggling PC parts instead of drugs might make it easer to evade the sniffer dogs, but trying to pass a metal detector test would have been a bit more of a challenge. It appears that wasn’t the reason he was busted, though.
China’s People’s Daily (via Tom’s Hardware) reported that the man was apprehended attempting to cross from Macau to mainland China on June 29. Customs officers observing incoming travelers believed the man “was walking in an abnormal posture”. A subsequent search by officers led to the discovery of 306 CPUs wrapped in plastic film and tape across the man’s waist, legs, and back.
The brand of CPUs was not disclosed, but one of the pictures released by Qingmao Customs does show a handful of them and my guess is they’re LGA 2066 CPUs. They’re not the latest and greatest CPUs, which is interesting in and of itself. Why smuggle older CPUs? Is it for tax avoidance or minimization? Are these engineering samples? Were they destined for a Chinese marketplace?
Perhaps they were meant for a megalomaniac’s supercomputer being built as part of a plot to destroy the world. Unless the Chinese customs department decides to tell us, we’ll never know.
Just last week, a smuggler was caught carrying 420 M.2 SSDs (from Macau again), while last December, a woman was caught with 200 CPUs and nice iPhones inside a prosthetic belly.