Related News
Shanghai police bust 17-member network for selling replica guns
Print Edition
SEVENTEEN people who sold replica guns online have been detained by Shanghai police, with 46 guns and over 4,000 bullets seized from them.
Police said 11 of the seized guns were capable of causing injury. Under Chinese law, replica guns, especially those that can cause injury, are banned. Violators face a jail term ranging from three to 10 years. In serious cases, it could also result in the death penalty.
The chief culprit in this case, a 25-year-old Guangdong Province native surnamed Zhang, was caught in Vietnam and brought to Shanghai in July.
Zhang used to be a member of a website that helped procure replica guns. It had some 90,000 members registered nationwide. Zhang fled to Vietnam following frequent police crackdowns.
In October last year, police officers in Hongkou District found someone selling replica guns on a QQ group. Police located the QQ user who just turned out to be a reseller. Police then traced the source of these guns and found they were all bought from an online supplier whose IP address was in Vietnam.
The supplier’s 10 local resellers were held in raids carried between April 1-4 and imitation guns and more than 4,000 bullets were found on them.
Zhang and another reseller, surnamed Wu, living in Henan Province, were identified as the main players.
Two teams were sent to Guangdong and Henan provinces but Zhang had already left for Vietnam while Wu was untraceable.
Another 14 guns were found in Wu’s house.
Shanghai police sought the assistance of their Vietnamese counterparts. Zhang was arrested in June and handed over to Shanghai police.
Zhang said he was only an agent of the replica guns. After getting orders online, he would contact the sellers in Hong Kong. The guns would be smuggled to Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, from where they would be couriered to the customers.
With the help of courier companies, six others were caught in August and eight guns seized from them.
Yang Yun, a Hongkou District police officer, said Zhang had been doing deals for two years before fleeing to Vietnam.
Profits from the sales range from 800 to 900 yuan, Yang said.
But Zhang said he only made a profit of between 10 to 100 yuan from each sale. The rest went to the Hong Kong sellers.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
