Delhi seizes 90 imported iPhones falsely marked as 'garments' on paperwork

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Delhi officials seized 90 iPhone 12 Pro devices that were incorrectly declared as garments on import paperwork.
The iPhones had been imported from Dubai.

90 iPhone 12 Pro devices have been seized by Delhi customs officers after they were incorrectly marked as garments on paperwork. They were only discovered after an X-ray operator spotted them when scanning three consignments at a Delhi airport.

The 90 iPhones were reportedly worth Rs.1 cr, or around $134,000. Marking the iPhones as garments would have allowed their importation without the need to pay the required fees — or that was the idea. Now that they've been seized nobody is getting their iPhones, savings or not.

ACC Export Commissionerate at New Courier Terminal intercepted 3 consignments & seized 90 iPhone 12 Pro having market value approx Rs.1 cr due to the alertness of officer posted at X-ray scanning. Consignments were shipped from Dubai & misdeclared as garments: Delhi Customs pic.twitter.com/mcK1n3mgU1ACC Export Commissionerate at New Courier Terminal intercepted 3 consignments & seized 90 iPhone 12 Pro having market value approx Rs.1 cr due to the alertness of officer posted at X-ray scanning. Consignments were shipped from Dubai & misdeclared as garments: Delhi Customs pic.twitter.com/mcK1n3mgU1— ANI (@ANI) July 9, 2021 July 9, 2021

Electronics like iPhones are notoriously costly in India and importing products via Dubai in this manner is one way that some attempt to get around that problem. It isn't the first time a shipment like this has been in the news of late, either. Just last month two men were arrested as they tried to smuggle 80 iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max handsets into the country.

Not paying tax on your iPhone is indeed one way to make it cheaper to buy, but there are better and more legal ways. Like checking our collection of the best iPhone deals for a start! Apple will of course announce its iPhone 13 in just a few short months, so it might be worthwhile waiting for that to arrive before making a purchase. We expect new iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro announcements in or around September.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

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