An illegal shipment of gadgets worth almost $800,000, including 500 Apple products, has been seized by Argentine authorities.
The products were on their way to Argentina from the U.S., with the aim of avoiding the import restrictions the country puts on smartphones, tablets, and similar items. Inspectors discovered around 260 iPhones, 60 MacBooks, numerous iPads, and more as part of the raid.
Argentina itself doesn’t have an Apple Store, and the only Apple products in the country sell for huge markups — often three times the amount it would cost in the United States. For instance, an iPad Air could easily carry a price tag approaching $3,000.
The case is reminiscent of a similar one which occurred in China earlier this year, when a Hong Kong man was stopped by custom officials as he tried to walk through a metal detector with 94 concealed iPhones taped to his chest, stomach and legs. He was stopped due to observations about his “weird walking posture, joint stiffness (and) muscle tension.”
Although Apple can’t be happy about its products being smuggled around the world, the fact that the company’s devices will readily sell for such a premium in certain markets does at least confirm once again just how white-hot the Apple brand is right now!
Source: AFP
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
3 responses to “Argentine authorities catch massive illegal shipment of Apple devices”
Actually, products here in Argentina are not expensive due to retailer markups. They are expensive because our extreme left-wing government is using outdated economic policies of restricting imports to “foster the consumption of domestic products”, and currency exchange restrictions (USDs are not allowed to be traded among individuals or business to a free-floating rate, but all currency, incoming and outgoing is held by the central bank to artificially set a false exchange rate). So, retailers don’t get to import many, they ones they do pay a 100% import tax and “luxury goods” tax, and they barely get any USDs approved to pay their suppliers. This has generated a boon for black-market importers (owned by government employees or their friends). This was probably a case where someone forgot to pay the bribe.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
People in Argentina pay a 100% tax on technology. No wonder the country is in economic chaos. Most of their computers and gadgets are a decade old.