Customs officials discovered people sending iPhones and iPads from Hong Kong to Shenzhen by placing the devices in tote bags and hooking them to a pulley that reached across the border, according to the Chinese news report over the weekend, which was also posted on Youtube. The smugglers, who allegedly did the exchanges overnight, were caught with more than 50 iPhones and 50 iPad 2s, worth some 300,000 yuan ($47,000).
Apparently the smugglers used a cable and pulley stretched over the Shatoujiao River, between a Hong Kong high-rise building and a building in nearby Shenzhen. The ruse was done to avoid stiff border taxes.