With copper, iron-ore, soybeans, and nickel all tough to carry when you need liquidity from your commodity-financing deals [7]; it appears the Chinese people have turned to more spectaculr methods of moving 'wealth'. As The South China Morning Post reports [8], just week after a man was stopped at the China-Hong-Kong border with 4 kilograms of gold in his shoes, customs officers caught a man smuggling more than 7000 diamonds in plastic bags in his underwear. The tell, officers noticed he was walking in a pculair manner.
Via The South China Morning Post, [8]
A man from Hong Kong was caught at a checkpoint at Shenzhen trying to smuggle more than 7,000 diamonds in his underwear, according to a mainland media report.
The man was stopped at the Shenzhen Bay crossing last Thursday after customs officers noticed he was walking in a peculiar manner, the Guangzhou Daily said.
Officers searched him and found a small plastic bag in his underwear containing thousands of small diamonds, semi-finished stones and gold jewellery.
The report said customers officers spent several hours counting 7,443 small diamonds, plus 10 pieces of jewellery weighing about 130 grams.
Anti-smuggling officers are investigating.
Another Hong Kong man was caught at the Lo Wu crossing in January trying to smuggle 4kg of gold in his shoes, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper.
Maybe he would have made it if he wore the diamonds like this?
[9]
However, this Chinese gentleman has nothing on a female smuggler entering Toronto (from Trinidad): [10]
The RCMP disclosed that more than 10,000 diamonds were found inside the body of 66-year-old Helena Freida Bodner, who arrived on a flight from Trinidad, but cannot confirm how the diamonds got into her body.
Seems diamonds are a smuggler's best friend, as the Shanghaiist notes, as undesirable as diamonds in your underpants seem...
is still a preferable alternative to those Taiwanese smugglers who were arrested while holding 24 pieces of gold up each of their rectums last July [11]. [11]