Seven people were arrested and more than 10,000 mobile phones were confiscated in a recent anti-smuggling blitz by Shenzhen and Hong Kong customs.

The smuggling case, said to be the largest one ever cracked jointly by the two authorities, involved mobile phones, LCDs and American ginseng, totaling 35 million yuan (US$4.54 million), being smuggled through drains between the two cities, Shenzhen Customs said Tuesday.

At 2 a.m. on May 6, Hong Kong customs officers arrested two suspects who were trying to smuggle 3,455 mobile phones through a hole in barbed wires in the Wutong Mountain area. They had taken the electronic products to a restricted border area in Hong Kong and were trying to cross Luosha Road with the smuggled products through the underground drains at the foot of Wutong Mountain on the Shenzhen side.

Shenzhen Customs and border police later seized 1,471 smuggled mobile phones and detained a Hong Kong man, suspected to be the ringleader, during a check of the drains. During a following raid, Hong Kong customs detained four suspects, including a Hong Kong woman and three mainland residents, and seized 5,844 mobile phones, 5700 kgs of American ginseng and 15,730 phone batteries in a storehouse in Fanling, Kowloon.

Editor: Yan