In the latest hardware smuggling arrests by Chinese customs, authorities have arrested a hardware vendor trying to smuggle a 420 M.2 solid state drive into China. Customs estimates the value of the seized solid-state drives to be around HK$258,000, or $32,984.94. Some of these drives are arguably some of the best solid state drives.

China News Agency HKEPC was the first to notice the story and reported that a smuggler was trying to smuggle illegal goods from Macau to Zhuhai via the port of Gongbei. Given the proximity between Macau and Zhuhai, this pass is one of the most popular mule routes. Recently, a woman hid more than 200 Alder Lake chips in her fake silicone stomach, while another man tried to circumnavigate China with 160 Intel processors glued to his body.

Typically, human traffickers try to smuggle expensive goods such as processors or graphics cards. Recent attempts to hide 70 video cards among 617 pounds of live lobster come to mind. Instead, this SSD smuggler has decided to sneak in cheaper hardware instead. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen M.2 SSDs shipped to China. In a recent arrest this year, a man was caught hiding 84 SSDs inside his scooter. M.2 SSDs still contain metal parts, so with metal detectors it’s nearly impossible to bypass metal detectors without alarming.

Instead of hiding the solid state drives in the package, the attacker decided to attach the drives to his body to get a bigger capture. The prize recovered was 420 M.2 drives with a total value of approximately $32,984.94. A criminal can miss out on 1TB or 2TB PCIe 4.0 drives for $78.53 per piece.

Therefore, smuggling equipment from Macau or Hong Kong is not subject to the Chinese government’s tax on goods. As a result, smugglers make huge profits when they resell goods on platforms like Goofish.

There is a large gray market for consumer electronics, including computer hardware, in China. So smuggling is unlikely to stop. On the other hand, smugglers are finding more creative ways to get goods into mainland China.