Using the identity of an employee of the auction house, the auction items entrusted by the owner are hired to be transported into and out of the country at a low price. Recently, an auction house employee in Beijing was sentenced for smuggling a number of lots. It is worth noting that among the lots smuggled by the employee are two golden Buddhas of the Ming Dynasty, and this case is also the first case in Beijing to be convicted of smuggling cultural relics and successfully recover cultural relics from Hong Kong on the mainland, effectively cracking down on smuggling crimes and protecting national cultural relics.
Basic facts of the case
Since 2020, Lu has repeatedly transported the auction items that should have entered and exited the country through proper and legal procedures by entrusting water customers to smuggle them into and out of the country, and filled his pocket with the legal customs declaration fees paid by the owner of the goods, until the case was finally discovered in 2021.
Lake Hakutai Shi Sanko
In August 2021, when Lu entrusted a water passenger to hire a truck driver (handled in a separate case) to transport a piece of Baitai Lake that had been auctioned by others for Shishanzi to be transported into the country by entrainment, he was caught red-handed by Shenzhen Customs. After calculation, the tax payable for the evasion of the goods was RMB 128,000.
Two golden Buddhas of the Ming Dynasty smuggled by Lu
When the police were investigating the case, they inadvertently discovered Lu's two earlier smuggling acts. In December 2020, Lu entrusted the same water passenger to hire a truck driver to transport two golden Buddhas of the Ming Dynasty to Hong Kong, these two Buddha statues are the bronze gilt Buddha statue of Sakyamuni Buddha and the bronze gilt crown of Sakyamuni Buddha. In February 2021, Lu used the same method to transport 5 ornamental stones and 1 Qing Qianlong flower pattern plate from Hong Kong into Hong Kong, but none of them declared to the customs, evading taxes totaling more than 156,000 yuan.
Qing Qianlong floral pattern flower mouth plate
In February 2023, Lu was arrested, and the cultural relics and ornamental stones and other items involved in the case have been seized and seized in accordance with the law. In October 2023, the Fourth Branch of the Beijing Municipal People's Procuratorate filed a public prosecution with the Beijing Fourth Intermediate People's Court.
Trial
After trial, the Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court held that the defendant Lu violated national laws and regulations, failed to declare to the customs, evaded customs supervision, transported cultural relics worth 2.8 million yuan from abroad, transported ornamental stones and other ordinary goods into the country, and evaded the tax payable of more than 284,000 yuan, and his actions constituted the crime of smuggling cultural relics and smuggling ordinary goods.
During the trial, Lu was able to truthfully confess the main facts of his crime, his relatives took the initiative to pay the taxes and fines payable on his behalf, and the cultural relics and most of the goods involved in the case were seized and seized in the case, so Lu X has statutory or discretionary mitigating circumstances. In the end, the Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Lu to 5 years in prison and a fine of 50,000 yuan for smuggling cultural relics, and sentenced Lu to 1 year in prison and a fine of 300,000 yuan for smuggling ordinary goods, and decided to enforce the fixed-term imprisonment of 5 years and 6 months and a fine of 350,000 yuan.
Lu appealed, and the Beijing High Court upheld the original judgment in the second instance.
What the judge said
The crime of smuggling seriously undermines the country's economic order and undermines the country's sovereignty. The first paragraph of Article 153 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that whoever smuggles goods or articles to evade a relatively large amount of tax payable or who has been given a second administrative punishment for smuggling within one year and then smuggles it again shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or short-term detention and shall also be fined not less than one time but not more than five times the amount of tax payable for evasion. Paragraph 2 of Article 151 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that whoever smuggles cultural relics, gold, silver and other precious metals prohibited by the State from exporting, or precious animals and their products prohibited by the State from being imported or exported, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years but not more than ten years and shall also be fined; where the circumstances are especially serious, a sentence of 10 or more years imprisonment or indefinite imprisonment is to be given, and confiscation of property is to be given; where the circumstances are more minor, a sentence of up to five years imprisonment and a concurrent fine is to be given.
The smuggling of cultural relics is a desecration of history, stealing the memory of civilization and harming the nation. The protection of cultural relics is beneficial in the present and in the future. At present, the security situation of cultural relics on the mainland is still grim, cultural relics crimes occur from time to time, criminal gangs have a clear trend of specialization and intelligence, criminal activities are spreading to the development of the network, the criminal industry chain is becoming more and more mature, and illegal transactions in the underground market are rampant, which has serious social harm. The handling of this case is a vivid practice for the Beijing court to resolutely implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of important expositions on cultural relics work, punish cultural relics crimes in accordance with the law, and effectively protect the safety of national cultural heritage.
The judge reminded that those who participate in smuggling and tax evasion will definitely bear corresponding legal responsibilities, and do not take risks because of luck.
Contributed by Beijing No. 4 Intermediate People's Court
Editor: Yuan Tianhe, Xiao Fei
Review: Wang Fang