smuggling

Lanyou Numeral was one of the top sellers on Taobao.com, a Chinese online marketplace. Earlier this week, 25 suspects—mostly housewives from Mainland China—were tried for smuggling in Apple iPhones and iPads on behalf of Lanyou Numeral in a bid to avoid paying the high import duties levied on the products.

An article in LiveMint follows the trail of idols stolen by small-time smugglers from abandoned temples in rural Tamilnadu all the way to their eventual sale for huge sums of money in the United States and elsewhere.