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How the Border Patrol uses tech to combat smugglers

TUCSON, Ariz.--It's summer in the Southwest, and there may not be a hotter border anywhere in the United States. For one thing, the mercury is easily over a hundred every day. And then there's the steady flow of organized smugglers trying to sneak themselves and their substantial cargo -- of migrants and/or drugs -- across Mexico's long desert frontier with Arizona.

There are nine U.S. Border Patrol sectors stretching across America's southwestern frontier. And back in 2000, the agency was snagging more than 2,000 people a day for crossing illegally into its … Read more

Flying-iPad smuggling operation busted

Authorities in China and Hong Kong have cracked the case of the flying iPads. In a "Mission: Impossible"-style smuggling operation, iPads, iPhones, and other coveted gadgets were being ferried across the river that separates Hong Kong and Shenzhen via a long zip line, according to translated reports from Chinese media.

The idea was apparently to capitalize on the different taxation laws in the two locales and make a mint selling the devices cheaper on the mainland side.

As if written for a scene with Daniel Craig or Jet Li, the goodies were loaded into a black nylon bag under cover of nightfall and sent over a cable line roughly a third of a mile long using an elaborate pulley system. The whole process reportedly took about two minutes.

The video below features a tour of one side of the crime scene.

Customs officials undertook a significant surveillance campaign, which led to a handful of arrests and seizing of dozens of the previously airborne Apple devices estimated to be worth more than $45,000. … Read more

Housewives caught smuggling iPads into China

It's not easy being an iPad mule.

Unlike cocaine, you are severely limited as to where you might conceal your contraband. It's not as if you can slip one in the upper parts of, say, your mouth.

Some, therefore, might melt in sympathy at the plight of 14 housewives who were reportedly accosted by customs officials in Shenzhen, China, just across the border from the free-wheeling frenzy of Hong Kong.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the 14 ladies happened to be in possession of 88 iPads, as well as 340 cell phones

They were unable, it seems, to offer adequate explanations for the fact that, for example, one of the shipping shoppers, had 65 cell phones strapped to her person.

Some might have chosen to tell customs that this was a revolutionary new weight-loss experiment. However, these ladies seem not to have been so spontaneous.

They were reportedly among the increasing number of ordinary Chinese who are offered a mere $30 to ferry some of the free world's finest gadgetry into the controlled atmosphere of the People's Republic.… Read more