Pill will: Huge fine for sailor

A FOREIGN sailor had a heavy-duty plan to smuggle nearly one million yuan (US$132,000) worth of pills used to treat impotence out of the Port of Shanghai.

While the bid was daring, it was doomed from the start and will prove extremely costly for him, or his employer.

The sailor will be fined 26,000 yuan, Shanghai Customs announced yesterday.

Local authorities would not reveal name of the sailor, nor his country of origin.

The sailor was caught by immigration police at local Wusong Port in early April when trying to board his working vessel, Cui Jian, an officer with Wusong Entry-Exit Frontier Inspection Station said yesterday.

He was stopped by an immigration police officer, who found that he was hiding about 33,000 pills inside his vest and in a bag he carried with him.

Police found many drug-illustration brochures along with the pill packages. The tablets weighed about 25 kilograms, making discretion difficult - and immediately arousing the customs officer's suspicion.

It was the largest drug-smuggling case in Shanghai in recent years, according to immigration police.

Police said the pills were Cialis, a well-known impotency medication.

The sailor confessed to police during questioning that he was promised 7,000 yuan by a friend in his home country for taking the pills to a foreign port.

Police did not release information on where the man obtained the pills.

When announcing the fine yesterday, Customs officers also said they had confiscated the tablets.

The sailor's ship visits Shanghai every week, according to immigration police.

If his services had been terminated on the vessel, the penalty will probably be paid by the ship's management, the immigration police said.

Source: Shanghaidaily