Chinese customs officials have stopped 5,840 graphic cards from entering a country’s port under mismatched documents. Its value can exceed three million US dollars.
“Recently, when Meilin Customs and Huanggang Customs conducted a joint examination of a company’s goods that were declared imported from Huanggang Port, it was found that 3 of the graphics card labels were covered with other marks,” a statement from Chinese customs posted on the social networking site Weibo Says [machine translated].
“It was found that the specifications and models displayed on the actual posters that were covered do not match the announced specifications and models, so a sample was taken from the set of graphic cards and submitted for inspection in accordance with the law. After determining the actual specifications and samples of 5,840 graphics cards that do not conform to the advertisement, and the value of the goods exceeded 20 million [Yuan]. “
Pictures of graphics cards were taken during inspection and show customs officials handling graphics cards marked with XFX. website MyDriverswho first spotted the original customs tuning, suspects the cards are XFX Speedster SWFT 309 Radeon RX 6700 XT Core Gaming models.
AMD launched the RX 6700 XT about a year ago to this day. It has a set MSRP of $479, although more fashionable clothing can often be purchased for a third party, such as the XFX, or due to a lack of supply. At MSRP, 5,840 RX 6700 XT will do Just Net you a cheeky $2,797.360, but the higher figure reported by the Chinese authorities may be due to the higher value of these cards and inflated market prices.
Graphics cards are such a valuable commodity nowadays, and this could be the reason why someone would want to get these former customs without paying the due import tax.
However, the importer of graphics cards to China has not been officially confirmed. XFX China – a division of XFX Corporation in California owned by Hong Kong-based PINE Technology Holdings Limited – is responsible for the import. Although there is no confirmation of this from the mail by Chinese customs.
XFX China’s websites and store on another retail website were reportedly down in the days following the takeover, which could indict the company in the takeover. Although both sites are now up and running, and we can’t independently verify if they are connected in any way.
What we do know is that a large batch of graphics cards are now in the care of Chinese customs. Many of the confiscated devices are subsequently auctioned off, rather than destroyed like more illegal substances. Although in this case, the original owners of the devices can pay the remaining import tax and claim the goods. I imagine such a withdrawal would be a costly mistake for someone, however, with some extra fines on top of it all.
No doubt it’s a risky business trying to get past habits, doing so and getting caught can result in heavy fines, product loss, and even imprisonment. However, technology is often seen as something worth smuggling. A few days after confiscating XFX graphics cards, authorities arrested a man trying to Smuggling nearly 160 CPU and 16 mobile phone taped to his body.
All CPUs appear to be 12th generation Intel Alder Lake CPUs, with a Core i5 12600KF confirmed among them. I wish I could say this is the first time someone’s CPUs have been strapped to their body in hopes of bypassing the customs of the country, but just last July we reported on multiple stories of smugglers trying to get CPUs and a memory stick Random access (RAM) and cell phones to China illegally.
These are just failed attempts we hear about.