Police arrest 11 over used clothes trafficking

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-10-25 19:18

Eleven detained over used clothes trafficking in south China

GUANGZHOU: Chinese police have detained 11 people involved in the smuggling of worn clothes in a southern coastal city, a local official said Sunday.

Officers with the public security authorities, customs and industry and commercial administrations raided more than 500 workshops and warehouses in Jieshi Town of Lufeng City in Guangdong Province on Thursday, dismantling nearly 300 illegal sites and confiscating more than 140 tonnes of used clothes smuggled in from abroad, according to Chen Zengxin, secretary of the Lufeng Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Eleven people were detained in suspicion of carrying out illegal used clothes trafficking and processing. Five vehicles were also confiscated, he said.

The crackdown campaign came in early October. In a major raid earlier this month, more than 120 tonnes of smuggled apparels were seized by police and burnt down later, a demonstration of the local government's resolution of eliminating the illegal business.

Police investigations showed that used clothes, smuggled from overseas including Japan and the Republic of Korea, had been sold to many inland Chinese regions, including the northeastern region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region after simple processing.

Chen promised continuous efforts to uproot the illegal business.

Maritime trafficking of used clothes, once rampant in the small coastal town, had been effectively contained by police. Local authorities had vowed to intensify the crackdown on land trafficking that were on the rise in recent years.