A smuggler spotted walking with 'abnormal posture' was found to be carrying 306 CPUs

picture of a man with smuggled CPUs attached to his body
(Image credit: Qingmao Customs, Macau)

A man was recently caught at China's Qingmao port attempting to smuggle CPUs into China. Though not the first attempt at smuggling PC parts into China, this latest attempt was a particularly gutsy try, as the smuggler was apprehended with no less than 306 CPUs strapped to his body.

Smuggling PC parts instead of drugs might make it easer to evade the sniffer dogs, but trying to pass a metal detector test would have been a bit more of a challenge. It appears that wasn't the reason he was busted, though.

China's People's Daily (via Tom's Hardware) reported that the man was apprehended attempting to cross from Macau to mainland China on June 29. Customs officers observing incoming travelers believed the man "was walking in an abnormal posture". A subsequent search by officers led to the discovery of 306 CPUs wrapped in plastic film and tape across the man's waist, legs, and back.

The brand of CPUs was not disclosed, but one of the pictures released by Qingmao Customs does show a handful of them and my guess is they're LGA 2066 CPUs. They're not the latest and greatest CPUs, which is interesting in and of itself. Why smuggle older CPUs? Is it for tax avoidance or minimization? Are these engineering samples? Were they destined for a Chinese marketplace?

Perhaps they were meant for a megalomaniac's supercomputer being built as part of a plot to destroy the world. Unless the Chinese customs department decides to tell us, we'll never know.

Just last week, a smuggler was caught carrying 420 M.2 SSDs (from Macau again), while last December, a woman was caught with 200 CPUs and nice iPhones inside a prosthetic belly

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Chris Szewczyk
Hardware Writer

Chris' gaming experiences go back to the mid-nineties when he conned his parents into buying an 'educational PC' that was conveniently overpowered to play Doom and Tie Fighter. He developed a love of extreme overclocking that destroyed his savings despite the cheaper hardware on offer via his job at a PC store. To afford more LN2 he began moonlighting as a reviewer for VR-Zone before jumping the fence to work for MSI Australia. Since then, he's gone back to journalism, enthusiastically reviewing the latest and greatest components for PC & Tech Authority, PC Powerplay and currently Australian Personal Computer magazine and PC Gamer. Chris still puts far too many hours into Borderlands 3, always striving to become a more efficient killer.

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