A person was just lately caught at China’s Qingmao port making an attempt to smuggle CPUs into China. Although not the primary try at smuggling PC components into China, this newest try was a very gutsy strive, because the smuggler was apprehended with at least 306 CPUs strapped to his physique.
Smuggling PC components as an alternative of medicine may make it easer to evade the sniffer canine, however attempting to go a steel detector check would have been a bit extra of a problem. It seems that wasn’t the rationale he was busted, although.
China’s Folks’s Each day (through Tom’s {Hardware}) reported that the person was apprehended making an attempt to cross from Macau to mainland China on June 29. Customs officers observing incoming vacationers believed the person “was strolling in an irregular posture”. A subsequent search by officers led to the invention of 306 CPUs wrapped in plastic movie and tape throughout the person’s waist, legs, and again.
The model of CPUs was not disclosed, however one of many footage launched by Qingmao Customs does present a handful of them and my guess is that they’re LGA 2066 CPUs. They don’t seem to be the newest and best CPUs, which is attention-grabbing in and of itself. Why smuggle older CPUs? Is it for tax avoidance or minimization? Are these engineering samples? Had been they destined for a Chinese language market?
Maybe they had been meant for a megalomaniac’s supercomputer being constructed as a part of a plot to destroy the world. Until the Chinese language customs division decides to inform us, we’ll by no means know.
Simply final week, a smuggler was caught carrying 420 M.2 SSDs (from Macau once more), whereas final December, a girl was caught with 200 CPUs and good iPhones inside a prosthetic stomach.