Three Bangladeshi nationals were detained at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport on Monday after being caught trying to smuggle 1,400 mobile phones out of the country.

Border police handed over the three suspects to Shenzhen Customs for further investigation, sources with the exit and entry administration of the Shenzhen airport said yesterday.

The three were caught at 9 p.m., while waiting to board Flight FD3623 to Bangkok.

One of the men looked nervous when a police officer surnamed Liang checked his passport. Liang became suspicious and reported the Bangladeshi to his supervisor.

Police found two other Bangladeshis were traveling with the man and questioned them separately.

They were all nervous and gave conflicting answers to questions about what they had been doing in China. Police decided to check their suitcases and found 1,400 mobile phones of different brands.

An investigation showed the three suspects had smuggled the mobile phones from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, and were planning to sell them in the Southeast Asian countries.

In another development, border police at the airport also found three Chinese nationals using fake Malaysian passports to enter China on Monday evening.

Police confiscated the fake passports and fined them.

The three people, natives of Jilin Province, went to Malaysia in 2003 and had been working illegally in that country since then.

Editor: Yan