Beware! Shenzhen seller sentenced to life imprisonment for selling contraband

Many sellers in the industry say that cross-border e-commerce is 70% product selection and 30% operation , which shows the importance of product selection.

However, when selecting products for cross-border e-commerce, you must stay away from prohibited items, otherwise there will be serious consequences.

Shenzhen seller sentenced to life imprisonment for producing gun parts

Recently, a Shenzhen foreign trade businessman named Dong was sentenced to life imprisonment for suspected illegal manufacturing and selling of firearms, which attracted widespread attention in the industry.

It is understood that the seller and his wife run a foreign trade company in Shenzhen, Guangdong.

In June 2022, the two were controlled by local police for illegal manufacturing and selling of firearms and were subsequently detained.

In May 2023, the case was heard at the first instance in the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court. Dong and his wife were accused of producing gun parts and sending them to the United States through international logistics. The court found them guilty of illegally manufacturing and selling guns and sentenced the main culprit Dong to life imprisonment.

Dong was dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment and filed an appeal.

On October 31, 2023, the Guangdong High Court made a second-instance ruling, rejecting the appeal and upholding the original judgment.

According to the case information provided to the media by his son Mr. Dong, in the second half of 2019, Dong met Chinese American Chen at an exhibition in the United States. The two sides reached a cooperation agreement. Chen commissioned Dong to process and manufacture gun parts. Chen was responsible for providing drawings and arranging people to pick up the goods, declare customs and ship them. Dong then sent the gun parts he produced to the United States through international logistics and handed them over to Chen.

In addition to directly providing gun parts to Chen, Dong's company also sold gun parts to other domestic and foreign buyers.

In June 2022, the police seized a large number of suspected gun parts from Dong's company. According to the "Appraisal Certificate" issued by the Shenzhen Public Security Judicial Appraisal Center, 111,463 of the parts were gun parts.

The appraisal center conducted physical comparison inspections on corresponding parts of foreign-made AR15 rifles and M16A1 rifles and found that their appearance, structure, size, etc. are similar to those of the corresponding parts of the above-mentioned rifles. They can be assembled and replaced on actual guns and have the special nature of gun parts. Combined with the main functions of the corresponding parts, the appraisal center determined that they are major components.

The court's final verdict was that Dong was convicted of illegal manufacturing and trading of guns and sentenced to life imprisonment. Dong's wife was convicted of illegal manufacturing and trading of guns and sentenced to 13 years in prison, and Dong's company was fined 2 million yuan. Other accomplices in the case were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 13 years, and the illegal gains of the defendant units and defendants will continue to be confiscated.

It is important to note that in addition to the principal offender Dong, sellers who purchased gun parts from Dong’s company were also held criminally liable. Among them, Lin, a seller from Yiwu, Zhejiang, sold the purchased gun parts to buyers through a domestic e-commerce platform. Jiang and Cui then purchased bolt handles from Lin and sold them abroad through the Amazon platform.

Finally, the Longgang District Court of Shenzhen made a first-instance judgment on the case. Lin, Jiang, and Cui were convicted of illegal purchase and sale of guns and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months, 3 years, and 3 years, respectively.

It is understood that the overseas market has a huge demand for gun parts. Although the profit of a single piece is not high, the income is very considerable if the volume is increased. Therefore, some sellers focus on the immediate benefits and ignore the laws and regulations at home and abroad.

my country has a strict gun control system that prohibits any unit or individual from illegally possessing, manufacturing, buying, selling, transporting, renting or lending guns.

Anyone who illegally manufactures, sells, transports, mails or stores guns shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years ; if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years, life imprisonment or death.

At the same time, the Amazon platform also explicitly prohibits the sale of any type of guns, holsters, collectible pistols, compressed air pistols with kinetic energy greater than 3.5 joules, and paintball guns with kinetic energy greater than 16 joules.

Despite this, there are still sellers who sell pistol mounts disguised as bicycle accessories on the Amazon platform.

It is understood that this bracket can be connected to the back of an AR-type pistol or other large pistol, allowing the pistol to be carried on the shoulder and fired, allowing for more accurate aiming at the target.

In response, an Amazon spokesperson said that the Amazon website expressly prohibits the sale of "non-fixed gun stocks and pistol stabilizing brackets", and the relevant listings have been deleted. The platform is taking relevant measures to crack down on such sales of prohibited items.

In addition to the Amazon platform, there are still many pistol braces on sale on other shopping websites in the United States. These sellers disguise pistol braces as other items for sale. There are even some platforms that have no orders to prohibit the sale of pistol braces, because in the United States, buying and selling pistol braces is not completely illegal.

Sellers need to be careful when selecting products, otherwise they may fall into a big trap!

In addition to gun accessories, there are many other items that are prohibited from sale on the Amazon platform.

If a seller attempts to sell prohibited items on the Amazon platform, the consequences will be very serious. Not only will they be punished and banned by the platform, but they may also have to bear corresponding legal responsibilities.

Therefore, when sellers choose business categories on Amazon, they must clearly understand the policies and prohibited goods list of the Amazon platform and strictly abide by them.

In addition to regular dangerous goods, some seemingly normal and popular products are also prohibited from sale on the Amazon platform.

Amazon will restrict the sale of light-emitting diode (LED) headlight conversion kits in its U.S. stores starting October 31, 2023 because the LED headlight conversion kits do not comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards.

Light-emitting diode (LED) headlight conversion kits are already on the list of banned products provided by the platform , so sellers on the US site are no longer allowed to sell or distribute these products.

This also serves as a warning to sellers that they need to predict various potential sales risks at the beginning of product selection to avoid sudden platform rectification, which may lead to product removal in batches and cause losses.

Sellers should also note that in addition to the platform’s prohibited items, there are two other categories that require careful selection when selecting products.

The first is e-cigarettes and related products.

Although the market demand for e-cigarettes has continued to grow in recent years, sellers are subject to many regulations and policy restrictions when selling related products on e-commerce platforms. In addition, safety accidents such as explosions and fires of e-cigarettes occur frequently, which makes people worry about product safety. If you are not careful, the product will be easily removed from the shelves due to safety issues.

The second is food and health products.

Although the sales of food and health products on the Amazon platform are very hot, such products involve the life and health of consumers, so they are strictly regulated. Sellers must strictly abide by various food safety standards and regulations on a daily basis, and at the same time ensure the quality and safety of their products. In addition, there are many counterfeit and shoddy products in this category. Once they are discovered by regulatory authorities, they will face serious consequences.

In short, sellers on the Amazon platform must pay attention to compliance when selecting products on a daily basis and must not touch Amazon's minefields, so as not to lose more than the gains.

Prohibited items

Sentencing