It turns out that if you’re trying to smuggle iPhones across a border, and not get caught by customs in the process, then you shouldn’t get too greedy.
This is after a woman was reportedly caught with the largest haul of Apple products ever on the route between Hong Kong and mainland China, where the smartphones are worth a pretty penny on the black market.
According to Chinese news site, XMNN, the woman had 102 iPhones (weighing a grand total of 40 pounds) strapped to her body with Spanx-style underwear, when she was rumbled, inevitably, by border police in Shenzhen province.
And because that wasn’t enough of an ask, she also decided to put 15 luxury Tissot watches in there too, just for good measure.
The officials, who reportedly found the unidentified ‘Iron Man’ woman on the 11 July, said they became suspicious after examining her outfit choices.
XMNN reported: “The weather was hot but she was wearing a little more [than other passengers], and she was wearing a cardigan outside her short-sleeved blouse, but she was not red on her face. She looked sick.”
They then asked her to step inside a metal detector, which gave the game away fairly quickly.
At least she beats the previous record, set by a man in January 2015, when he tried to go through Futian Port with 94 iPhones strapped to his body.
At the time, officials said the man was identified only by his gait - he had a “ “weird walking posture, joint stiffness, muscle tension” and — when forced through a metal detector — tons and tons of hardware around his waist.
But you can see why people take the risk, as the HuffPost previously reported, an iPhone would set back an average Chinese worker 18% of their annual salary.
According to the FT, in the country, an unlocked 16GB iPhone 6 is around $872 compared to $649 in the US. Since the average worker in China earns about $4,755 a year, that’s about 18% of an average annual salary.
Were that scaled up in the UK that would be an equivalent of £4770.