Tianjin Customs auctioned more than 40, 000 bottles of smuggled Starbucks coffee and sold 190000.

Tianjin Daily News reporter Ji Yan Tianjin Customs said that a series of cases of smuggling and import of Starbucks-branded coffee beverages made in the United States by underquoted prices were uncovered by special operations a year ago. So far, five criminal cases have been put on file, with a value of more than 25 million yuan.

This morning, this batch of 1680 cases (24 bottles each) of Starbucks coffee drinks smuggled by Tianjin Customs for the first time were auctioned, and an individual buyer won the auction at a price of 190000 yuan.

The Starbucks coffee beverage commissioned by Tianjin Customs needs to be disposed of in advance as it is nearing its expiration date. Among them, 700 cases of beverages will last until March 4, 2016, 140 cases until March 7, 2016, and 840 cases until April 4, 2016.

If the buyer needs to sell again, he must go through the relevant formalities for the domestic sale of the goods, and the disposal must comply with the relevant provisions of national laws and regulations on imported food.

At the scene, the auctioneer offered a starting price of 187645 yuan for all the drinks as item 10, and a middle-aged female bidder raised a card to bid at a price of 190000 yuan, and finally successfully auctioned off all 1680 cases of Starbucks coffee drinks at that price.

[review of the case]

Before the Spring Festival, Tianjin Customs compared and analyzed the price data of Starbucks coffee drinks imported from different ports and found that there were doubts about the declared prices of Starbucks coffee drinks imported by many enterprises in Beijing and Tianjin, and they were suspected of underreporting prices.

Tianjin Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau immediately organized a case-handling force to investigate relevant enterprises and suspected goods. After investigation, it is found that most of the suspected enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises engaged in food import business.

Customs anti-smuggling personnel understand the market situation of this brand of coffee beverage by visiting regular import enterprises, querying and analyzing customs clearance data, and comparing the price information of other domestic ports of similar commodities.

In order to seek illegal interests, the suspected enterprise conceals the real transaction price and makes false trade contracts and invoices lower than the actual price to declare, the range of understated price is as high as 30%, and the amount of illegal profit is huge.

Moreover, the enterprises involved in the case also use normal banks to pay foreign exchange, underground banks and other ways to pay for goods, seriously interfering with the investigation and collection of evidence of the flow of funds by the investigators. At present, the relevant smuggling suspects have been taken criminal compulsory measures, and the case is still under further investigation.