Eight Chinese customs officials on trial accused of taking bribes from Shenzhen smugglers

Eight Shenzhen customs officers from the same department have gone on trial charged with taking hundreds of thousands of yuan in bribes from smugglers crossing the border over a five-year period.

The men from Huanggang Customs’ logistics department 6 – Li Guoqiang, the former logistics director, Li Wujun, current head of department, three vice-directors and three other officers – are accused of accepting bribes in return for allowing smugglers’ trucks to pass from Hong Kong into Shenzhen between 2008 and 2013, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Three of the accused, not identified in the newspaper report, pleaded guilty yesterday, while a fourth unnamed defendant denied the charges at Shenzhen people’s court of Futian district.

The other four defendants will give pleas at a later hearing once the trial involving the other men has been completed.

Huanggang Customs is in charge of controlling both Huanggang and Futian checkpoint crossings.

The newspaper reported that a number of businesses had allegedly bribed officials of department 6 – one of Huanggang Customs’ 15 different logistics departments – for a number of years.

Logistics department 6 was responsible for checking imported goods crossing the border each day between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.