Stewardess’ jail term for smuggling reduced
Print Edition
A FORMER air stewardess, who had been sentenced to 11 years in jail for smuggling, had her punishment reduced by three years in a retrial in Beijing yesterday.
The case has caught the attention of the public with many suggesting that the 11-year jail term was too heavy a punishment, while others questioned if buying goods abroad and reselling them amounted to smuggling at all.
Proxy purchase, where buyers hire agencies to buy goods abroad at competitive prices or those that cannot be found in the Chinese market, is very popular in China.
In the retrial, the customs presented a tax evasion certificate of 80,000 yuan (US$13,170) based on the seized goods — 1.01 million yuan less than in the first trial.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court heard that Li Xiaohang, 30, a former flight attendant with Hainan Airlines, brought cosmetics from South Korea but did not declare them on arrival at the airport in China, and evading taxes worth 80,000 yuan.
Li bypassed the customs with the help of her friends Chu Ziqiao and Shi Haidong. The two were sentenced to 30 months and 28 months in prison.
After she quit Hainan Airlines in 2008, Li opened an online cosmetics store in 2009 on taobao.com with her boyfriend Shi Haidong. In 2010, Li involved her friend Chu Ziqiao who was working in South Korea by asking him to buy cosmetics at the duty-free shops and courier them to China, the Legal Evening News reported.
But after the Chinese customs imposed tariffs of at least 50 yuan (US$7.34) on items imported through the mailing agencies in September 2010, Li started to travel to South Korea and bring the items on her own.
Previously the imported items got 400 yuan to 500 yuan duty exemption.
Between August 2010 to August 2011, Li and Shi imported cosmetics from South Korea several times and walked out without declaring the goods at the customs.
Li was caught at the Beijing Capital International Airport on August 31, 2011, after she was returning from another trip to South Korea.
Li’s parents and her lawyer said they planned to appeal again after the retrial, the Legal Evening News reported yesterday.
“If Li receives a heavy penalty in jail, most of the proxy purchasing store owners should be jailed,” an online shop owner said. Another shop owner, surnamed Jiang, said she had already stopped her business after learning of Li’s fate.
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