21 November, Nanjing customs cracked an amethyst crystal smuggling case, worth a total of ￥267 million. The bust effectively brought down four gangs that had been shifting the crystal through the port of Lianyungang, northeast of Nanjing. The case has so far brought to light over 20 people who are to be prosecuted.
Lianyungang customs and anti smuggling branch of local police stumbled across a clue early last year whereby a Donghai county company, in Lianyungang, acted as a crystal importer and declared the price far lower than its real value. Through a comparison of big data, anti smuggling police found that the price of crystal sales in the market had increased year by year, but the import declaration price of some enterprises remained basically unchanged and at a low price, inconsistent with the laws of market forces.
It turned out that businesses had been buying the crystals from South America and various other places, and importing them through the port at Lianyungang, where it was then transported to Guangdong for processing and sales. Due to such an abundance of occurrences, it once again caused customs to be extra vigilant regarding declaration.
The majority of crystal imports into the port of Lianyungang are by sole trader or family businesses. Since there is no import qualification, an agent company is entrusted to handle the business of imports. Comprehensive tax rates of imported stone, crystals and semi manufactured goods are 33.9, 40.4 and 75.5 percent respectively.
Illegal profiteering is high among those whom do not declare. Shippers only pay a lump sum fee, which includes tax, to provide a freight bill. In order to maximise their own profits, many small businesses carry the characteristics of individual households; by using their own agent model they pay less tax.
This year, the General Administration of Customs launched a unified campaign to combat smuggling, focusing on industrial and gang smuggling and helping to prevent the loss of national tax revenue, while standardising the import and export trade.
At present, the smuggling of cut-price crystal in Lianyungang has effectively ceased operations.
