Police and Coast Guard crack down on smugglers
Police catch suspects on a boat which was allegedly smuggling sugar.
Coast Guard officials stop a boat which allegedly was smuggling sand.
Six suspects have been caught for allegedly smuggling about 700 tons of sugar on the Yangtze River, Shanghai police said on Wednesday.
The suspects allegedly sailed into the river in a boat with its automatic identification system (AIS) turned off on the afternoon of April 9, but they didn’t escape the scrutiny of authorities.
They were caught at 5:30pm near the Changjiang Tunnel Bridge in Chongming District, and the sugar they were allegedly smuggling is estimated to be worth over 3 million yuan (US$425,000).
Shanghai police have been cracking down on boats which illegally turn off their AIS, use multiple systems or the systems of other boats, as these practices are often used by criminals.
Since December last year, police had nailed 11 such boats and seized over 3,600 tons of smuggled oil and over 700 tons of smuggled sugar which were worth over 31 million yuan.
A total of 51 suspects have been caught in those cases.
About 1,000 boats enter Huangpu River from the Yangtze River every day, police said.
Meanwhile, so far this month, the Coast Guard has caught 30 suspects in two smuggling cases where allegedly over 240 tons of oil and 52,000 tons of sand were being smuggled on the ocean near Shanghai.
In the oil smuggling case, which was busted on April 9, the Coast Guard had to use water cannons to force the smugglers to stop their vessel.
