Chapter 36 Chapter 36

In the 1980s, not long after the opening of the country, foreign cigarettes were still rare at that time. If you distributed a pack of Jianpai, Marlboro, and Sanwu among colleagues and friends, the worth would be different.But in the 1990s, foreign cigarettes had already appeared in public at the tobacco stalls in the market. Facing the large market of 200 million smokers in the mainland, how can foreign tobacco manufacturers not salivate!Their determination and courage to seize the Chinese tobacco market are irresistible in their means and methods.Domestic smugglers echoed it and hit it off.So the smoke billowed in, and the foreign smoke covered the sky.According to an authoritative statistics, less than 1% of the foreign cigarettes sweeping the Chinese market come in through legal channels.This means that 99% of foreign cigarettes on the market are smuggled and imported!

According to the materials that reported the smuggling of Lai Changxing Group, foreign tobacco was one of the key commodities Lai Changxing smuggled.In the four years since 1995, Lai Changxing earned more than 2.5 billion in profits from smuggling imported cigarettes.According to the figures provided by the accountants of the Yuanhua Group who keep the smuggling income account: in 1995, the revenue from cigarette sales was 3.4 billion yuan, in 1996 it was as high as 4.8 billion yuan, in 1997 it was 4.1 billion yuan, and in 1998 there was still 2.5 billion yuan. From January to May, the import value of the last batch of cigarettes alone reached 1.1 billion yuan.In total, the total domestic sales of cigarettes smuggled by Lai Changxing Group exceeded 15 billion yuan.

According to the statistics of cigarette import and export documents and computer data collected successively from the customs, foreign agency, shipping agency, and tally, the cigarettes imported by Xiamen Port in the form of entrepot trade in the three years from 1996 to 1998 There are more than 3 million boxes, estimated at the domestic market sales price, worth 12 billion yuan. Faced with such a huge amount of cigarette smuggling, the leader of the special task force assigned the investigation of cigarette smuggling as a serious case to the vanguard of the customs to investigate and deal with it.

On September 7, 1999, the smuggling investigation team mobilized 13 investigators to set up the "Cigarette Smuggling Evidence Collection Team" (referred to as the "cigarette" team). On September 25, 1999, the "4.20" task force searched the Red Building, the "stronghold" of Lai Changxing's smuggling group. In the safe of Lai Changxing's wife, Zeng Mingna, in room 503, an important documentary evidence of smuggled cigarettes was found, namely It records the smoke report of 290,000 cartons of cigarettes imported on 13 voyages including the "Suchang" ship from March to May 1999.

The task force leaders were extremely outraged by this.Judging from the time, the smuggling activities continued until June and July of 1999.At that time, the task force was arriving in Xiamen for the first time.Lai Changxing's rampant smuggling activities are really a challenge to the state power.It was preliminarily determined that the smuggling method was importation under the false name of the product.At this time, when the investigation team was investigating the problem of the Haixin storage yard, they found a large number of cigarette smuggling clues.For this reason, on October 14, the leader of the task force decided to select 6 investigators to investigate the case, and the investigators who investigated the smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes belonged to the same cigarette team.

At that time, at the beginning of the establishment of the cigarette group, everyone had no idea how to solve the case.During the attack on the Botan oil depot 10 days ago, it was discovered that "Xindadi" not only smuggled oil products, but also cigarettes; during the surprise trial of "Xindadi" general manager Wang Yandi in early September, important materials related to cigarette smuggling were obtained. From May to October 1995, Wang Yandi, as the deputy manager of the second trade department of Huadong Industrial Corporation (a military enterprise), borrowed the name of "Huadong Industrial Xiangyu Import and Export Co., Ltd." located in Xiamen Xiangyu Free Trade Zone, and worked for Lai Changxing. Yuanhua Company acted as an agent in the cigarette entrepot trade business, and smuggled more than 100,000 cartons of cigarettes within half a year.Lai Changxing paid an "agency fee" of 700,000 yuan.Later, because the Beijing Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation came to Xiamen to investigate whether the cigarette entrepot trade was really exported, Lai Changxing was alarmed, and decided to stop using the signboard "East China Xiangyu Company".

Instigated by Lai Changxing, Wang Yandi brought in another military enterprise and established "Xiangyu New Central Plains Co., Ltd." in March 1996.This signboard was used until September 1996, and more than 30,000 boxes of cigarettes were smuggled.Later, because the ship "Mintai No. 2" carrying imported cigarettes under the name of "New Central Plains Company" was seized by Shenzhen Customs, the "agent" business was stopped.The ship that was detained, was ordered by Lai Changxing to go to Xiamen Customs to "make up" formalities, and was soon released after Lai used his connections in Beijing.Wang Yandi received an agency fee of 1 million yuan.