Court to tan alleged smugglers' hides
By Zheng Caixiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-11-12 00:26

The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court Thursday opened a trial on a leather smuggling case that involves more than 320 million yuan (US$39 million), apparently one of the largest in the country's history.

A dozen suspects were brought before the court.

Defendant Leung Ka-yiu of Hong Kong used to operate a leather-processing firm in Humen, a tiny town at the mouth of the Pearl River in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.

All suspects are charged with illegally smuggling a large number of cowhides into Guangdong Province from Hong Kong and other overseas regions and allegedly have caused the State huge economic losses, according to an official from the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court.

The rest defendants come from Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei and Sichuan provinces.

Although the court did not rule yesterday, the principal defendants could face serious punishments if they are pronounced guilty.

"It is because the products they have smuggled to the mainland have involved a large sum of money and caused huge losses,'' he said.

Leung is also being investigated for illegally owning two powerful shotguns and ammunition.

The official said his court would seriously punish smugglers in an effort to bring the region's active smuggling under control.

Severe punishment will help deter other criminals.

Leung denied all the charges at court yesterday. He and his associates have hired a 21-person lawyer-group to defend them.

The trial is expected to last five days.

Over the past few years, smuggling has been rampant in some parts of the prosperous Guangdong Province and the neighbouring Hong Kong and Macao.

Guangdong has stepped up its fight against smuggling and related crimes in recent years, the official said.

Authorities began investigating Leung and his associates as far back as May 2000, they said.

Leung and other suspects were detained in September of last year when Guangzhou Huangpu Customs officials said they had cracked the case.

The alleged illegal acts committed had negative impacts on the domestic animal-breeding industry and related leather processing industries, officials said.

China imports a huge number of cowhides and fur and related leather products each year to meet a huge market demand.

The leather-processing industry is regarded as a profitable sector in the country.

In Guangdong Province alone, there are more than 6,000 leather processing firms, employing a large number of people from around the country.

Many of them are foreign-funded companies, joint ventures and privately run enterprises.

And the big profits once attracted many cowhide and other fur smugglers to take risks operating in the region.

The case is, so far, the largest cowhide smuggling case that has been cracked down in the Chinese mainland.

It has once raised great concerns from home and abroad.

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