The so-called "water passengers" generally refer to those who travel back and forth between the mainland and Hong Kong, Macao and other places, and smuggle goods through carrying and carrying goods to cross the border for the purpose of earning "labor fees". These people often use the excuse of their own use, but they will go back and forth multiple times a day to bring taxable goods into the country and evade taxes in this way. This kind of behavior of bringing parallel goods into the country for sale is a smuggling act, and it is also the main target of the customs crackdown in accordance with the law.
Judging from both the number of "sailors" and the total amount of smuggling, the Gongbei Port in Zhuhai is definitely second to none, and from the map, Macao is like a lotus flower stretching out to the South China Sea, blooming on the blue waves of the motherland. At the root of the lotus flower is the Gongbei Port, where 300,000 people flow through the joint inspection building connecting Zhuhai and Macao every day. Since 2011, when the number of inbound and outbound passengers at Gongbei Port exceeded 100 million for the first time, it has become the largest passenger inspection port in China and even Asia. Such a surging crowd has brought infinite vitality to the two places, and also made the "water guests" extremely active, they dress up in disguise, mingle in them, and use a variety of techniques.
Recently, a number of "water customers" were tricked, 27 people lost 3.57 million, and they had no choice but to call the police for help, and the Macao police arrested five locals and transferred the case to the procuratorate for investigation with a considerable amount of fraud.
From April 19 to 20, 2024, the Judicial Police of the Macao Special Administrative Region received a series of reports from a total of 27 local residents who claimed that after purchasing dry goods from three trading houses in the northern district of Macao, when they took the goods to the designated store in Gongbei, Zhuhai for delivery in accordance with the instructions of the merchants, in order to earn a labor fee, the Zhuhai store directly refused to receive the goods. The cost of bringing labor could not be earned, and the capital could not be lost, so these "water customers" returned to the dry goods stores in Macao and asked for a refund of the goods.
According to the informants, the dried goods they purchased included dried abalone, fish maw, fish maw tubes and scallops, and the prices of each item were as high as thousands of yuan, or even tens of thousands of yuan. They were told that they could earn between 100 and 200 yuan for each piece of goods they brought to Gongbei, Zhuhai. However, when they arrived at the designated place in Zhuhai with the goods, they were met with the embarrassing situation of the store refusing to receive the goods, and each "water customer" lost between 1,500 yuan and 585,000 yuan, with a total loss of about 3.57 million yuan.
After the case occurred, the Macao Judicial Police Bureau quickly intervened in the investigation. After a preliminary investigation, it was found that although the three trading houses involved in the case were registered by a Mainlander, the actual operation was carried out by five local men and women from Macao. Among them, a man was responsible for collecting money from the trading house every day. In addition, after appraisal by professionals, the actual value of the dried seafood involved in the case was much lower than the selling price of the trading house, and the batch of dried seafood was only worth a few hundred yuan each, but it was sold to the "water customer" in the case at a price ranging from more than 2,100 to 8,000 yuan, which was an obvious price fraud.
On the evening of April 20, 2024, the police successfully intercepted a man involved in the case in the northern district of Macau and brought him back to the Judicial Police Station for further investigation. However, the man refused to cooperate with the police questioning and took a tough attitude. The police said that they will conduct an in-depth investigation into his suspected fraud in accordance with the law and transfer the case to the procuratorate for trial as soon as possible.