I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this article has brought a camera through customs when traveling overseas. I'm also willing to bet that many of you have bought a camera on a trip, and had to declare it when arriving at the airport.
However, I'm willing to bet that nobody reading this has tried to sneak through customs with over 80 cameras more than 100 boxes of film stuffed in their suitcase.
Unless you're the unnamed passenger in this story from China, who did exactly that when flying into Shanghai Hongqiao Airport – whereupon customs agents collared him and seized his bounty.
Among the items he attempted to smuggle into the country were a Pentax 17, an expensive-looking rangefinder camera, a Rolleiflex TLR, and dozens and dozens of boxes of camera film. He was an analog lover, then – or at least, had lots of potential customers who are.
According to the story, shared on Chinese social media by the Federation of Independent Photographers, the passenger entered the country via the Green Channel – the equivalent of the 'nothing to declare' lane in other countries.
Clearly, however, he had forgotten the 75 disposable cameras, 6 film cameras, 1 instant camera, 27 packs of instant film and 103 boxes of miscellaneous camera film in his bag.
While I can't understand the Chinese text in the video of the report, Google Translate tells me that the first caption reads "Super high volume photo shoot", which made me laugh so hard that my coffee came out of my nose.
The passenger did, at least, concede to customs that the cameras were not for personal use and that he intended to sell them for profit.
That said, given that the agents were alerted to the contents of the bag after putting it through the airport's scanning equipment, I don't know how good some of that film is going to be – both Polaroid and Instax confirm that you should not take instant film through airport X-ray machines.
Unsurprisingly, the customs officials "temporarily detained the batch of items in accordance with the law" – and I'm pretty sure that the passenger in question received similar treatment. China takes smuggling pretty seriously, with heavy fines and jail time as punishment, so I hope this all works out for the guy.
A timely reminder for anyone who buys expensive camera gear while on vacation: make sure to declare it at customs!
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