Wu Shihai, an official with Guangdong Customs, said officers at all levels in the province would continue their crackdown on smuggled pirated discs.

And even greater efforts would be made to bring big-time smuggling gangs and serious smuggling cases to justice, Wu said.

Guangdong Customs has set up a channel for local residents to report piracy and smuggling cases.

Guangdong Customs cracked 17 big cases involving smuggled pirated VCDs (video compact discs) and CD-ROMs in the first six months of the year, seizing more than 22 million pirated VCDs and CD-ROMs.

Each case had involved more than 10,000 pirated VCDs and CD-ROMs.

And last month, Guangdong police also smashed two secret bases producing pirated discs in the cities of Zhongshan and Shantou, seizing more than 4 million pirated products in the process.

Plenty of production lines and other equipment and materials were also seized.

Wu said most of the crackdowns on smuggling cases had been in eastern waters off Guangdong Province when smugglers were caught illegally transporting their video products into the province from Hong Kong, Macao and Southeast Asia.

And more and more small fishing boats are now being used by smugglers to help move pirated VCDs, CD-ROMs and other video products from big ships that arriving in the waters off Guangdong Province.

Shenzhen Customs cracked the country's biggest pirated VCD smuggling case of the year on May 12, seizing more than 2.9 million pirated VCDs on an fishing vessel used by smugglers.

(China Daily August 14, 2002)