Shanghai cracked a smuggling case of spare parts worth 100 million yuan, and three sets of prices for one kind of goods.
[Xinmin Evening News Xinmin.com] Yesterday, Shanghai Customs announced that it had cracked a smuggling case of textile machinery spare parts. By registering a domestic company and acting as an exclusive agent for foreign brands, the criminal suspect smuggled imported textile machinery spare parts at an understatement rate of 90%, with a case value of 100 million yuan. A few days ago, the City No.3 Intermediate People’s Court made a judgment and sentenced the enterprise involved in the case, Shanghai Shisheng International Trade Co., Ltd., to a fine of 50 million yuan. The defendant Ma was sentenced to 8 years in prison and the defendant Zong was sentenced to 3 years in prison with a suspended sentence. The illegal income from smuggling crimes was recovered.
Leading the niche industry to open the "invisible" mode
Top comb and other items are very important accessories in textile industry. The evenness and smoothness of top comb needles are directly related to the effect of combing process, and the wear rate is very high and the demand is large. Because of its complicated precision requirements, China relies partly on foreign imports.
In January 2015, the anti-smuggling police of Shanghai Customs found that the declared price of the top comb imported from a German company by Shanghai Shisheng International Trade Company was obviously low, and the declared price of the top comb after complicated processing technology was basically close to that of ordinary steel products. This is obviously unreasonable.
With a question mark, after further investigation, the customs anti-smuggling police found that this enterprise is the exclusive agent of German brands in China, and its import volume accounts for 90% of China’s textile machinery parts imports, which is in a leading position in the industry. In an industry with a small market like this, one or very few enterprises often occupy an absolute share of the industry. It is difficult for customs to obtain accurate price information of similar products of domestic parallel enterprises, and there is no reference to make judgments.
Three sets of invoices are connected in series to build a "routine" of false price reporting
In January 2015, the anti-smuggling police of Shanghai Customs went to the warehouse of Shisheng Company in Changde Road, Shanghai to search. Three sets of invoices were retrieved from the mailbox of the company’s staff, namely: imported price invoices, forged understated price invoices and real settlement invoices.
After investigation, since March 2009, the suspect Ma has put forward suggestions on smuggling for profit to Ms. S, a foreigner who was then the domestic agent of German brands. After listening to Ma’s suggestion, Ms. S transferred the enterprise to Ma’s operation. She went abroad to avoid the legal risks brought by smuggling, and only settled the payment afterwards, and she handed it over to the German brand. Ma adopted the mode of forging invoices and underreporting payment for goods. Among them, the price invoice imported from foreign countries is higher than the real sales price, which is used to show customers when doing marketing to promote sales; Forged under-reported price invoices are lower than the real sales price and used for tax evasion when reporting to the customs; The settlement invoice is the real sales price and is used for settlement with the company.
Smuggling costs a lot. Law-abiding management is the right way.
According to the data, the import volume of the enterprise involved accounts for 90% of the import volume of textile machinery parts in China. Without a large number of market competitors, if it operates legally, the annual turnover of its products is about RMB 30 million, and the profit is objective. However, under the temptation of greater interests, the criminal suspect Ma chose to take risks. With the increasing profits, there is a sense of luck, and he weaves another lie for one lie. After this case happened, the companies and personnel involved were punished by law.
It is worth mentioning that after the enterprises involved were seized, faced with the blank market demand for the textile accessories, the employees of the former Shisheng Company took over the integration of the original suppliers and customers, re-represented the brand and standardized the import and marketing channels.
"It turned out that the company was on the road of no return because of smuggling, but the product it represented was actually a good project with high customer recognition, so I decided to take over the project and continue to cooperate with German brands." Liu Jie, the manager of the new company, is very optimistic about the future development prospects. Since 2016, Liu Jie’s company has occupied 30% of the top comb market, and the value of imported goods is 21 million yuan, up 20% year-on-year. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Guo Jianwei)
