The Vanishing Wine Smugglers of Hong Kong and Shenzhen

Shenzhen was once a major gateway for wine smuggled from Hong Kong into mainland China. Today, the trade has gone conspicuously quiet.

Public records show a marked decline in wine-smuggling cases through Shenzhen’s border checkpoints in 2025 and 2026. At the very least, the number and scale of disclosed cases are well below the levels seen more than a decade ago.

Shen Zelin, general manager of Shenzhen Longyi Supply Chain Co., Ltd., which transports wine and other goods through the city’s ports, has witnessed the retreat firsthand. He said wine-smuggling cases have “definitely declined” compared with the period before 2024. Even service providers that once supported the illicit trade have become difficult to find.

But fewer disclosed cases do not mean smuggling has disappeared, he cautioned.

“It is impossible that there are no cases simply because none have been announced,” Shen said. “Some may not be significant enough to disclose, while others may be so large that they are still under investigation and cannot yet be made public.”

A Shenzhen importer specialising in classified-growth Bordeaux, who requested anonymity, estimated that wine smuggling has fallen by around 50% from its pandemic-era level.

“Some smuggling still exists, but it is relocating,” he said. “Part of the operation has shifted to Zhuhai and Guangxi.”

A Former Hub for Contraband Wine

For years, Shenzhen was one of the principal gateways for wine smuggled from Hong Kong into mainland China – and one of the cross-border routes most closely monitored by customs authorities.

Hong Kong abolished its wine duty in 2008. Mainland China, by contrast, continues to levy customs duty, consumption tax and value-added tax on imported wine. Under the current most-favoured-nation tariff regime, the combined import tax burden on ordinary wine is around 43%.

That substantial tax gap created an obvious profit opportunity, particularly for high-value bottles such as Bordeaux classified growths.

The sheer volume of cross-border traffic also made Shenzhen an attractive smuggling route. According to the Shenzhen Municipal Port Office, the city’s checkpoints handled 273 million passenger crossings in 2025 – an average of roughly 740,000 a day.

The constant movement of people between Hong Kong and Shenzhen created ideal conditions for wine to be smuggled in small quantities by individual travellers.

Under mainland regulations, Hong Kong and Macao residents, as well as mainland residents travelling privately between the mainland and the two cities, may bring in one bottle of alcoholic beverages above 12% ABV duty-free, provided it does not exceed 0.75 litres.

Smuggling groups exploited this allowance by dividing shipments among multiple couriers, who made repeated crossings carrying one or two bottles at a time. The practice became known as “ant moving” – breaking a large shipment into many small loads to reduce the risk attached to each crossing.

The method generated a string of high-profile cases.

In 2023, in an administrative penalty case disclosed by Huanggang Customs, Shanghai Fushan Investment Co., Ltd. hired Chen Wenli to smuggle wine purchased overseas into mainland China between April and June of that year. The wine was divided into smaller loads and carried across the border in the personal luggage of parallel traders. Customs valued the wine at approximately RMB 350,500 (US$52,100) and estimated that the scheme had evaded RMB 105,600 (US$15,700) in taxes.

The operation followed the same basic model: wine was purchased and stored in Hong Kong, carried in small batches by parallel traders and brought into mainland China through Shenzhen’s checkpoints.

Court documents offered a detailed account of how the system worked. Couriers collected wine from warehouses in Hong Kong, placed one or two bottles in their bags and crossed into Shenzhen through Lo Wu. Other members of the network collected the bottles outside the checkpoint and transported them to warehouses in Shenzhen or directly to customers.

Enforcement Tightens

In May 2012, Shenzhen Customs said it had uncovered more than 160 red-wine-smuggling cases and seized over 6,000 bottles in the first four and a half months of the year alone.

That once-thriving supply chain is now shrinking. Shen believes tougher enforcement is one of the main reasons.

“The method is straightforward: arrest the people involved,” he said. “If a courier is caught three times, it becomes a criminal matter. Authorities also go after the courier bosses and the owners of the goods. Once the organisers and cargo owners are gone, the couriers disappear as well.”

“Once people have experienced losing their freedom, nobody wants to cross that red line again,” he added.

Pan Liu, deputy general manager of Hong Feng Yuan Wines (Shenzhen) Trading Company, has spent years importing and selling wine in Shenzhen. He has observed the same change.

“Enforcement against parallel traders is extremely strict now,” Pan said. “If they are caught two or three times, they can be blacklisted and may no longer be able to obtain permits for travel between Hong Kong and the mainland.”

Although eligible travellers are generally permitted to carry one bottle duty-free, Pan said the allowance does not apply to those making repeated journeys within a 15-day period. Frequent cross-border travellers can therefore face heightened scrutiny even when carrying only one bottle.

“I recently returned from Vinexpo in Hong Kong with several empty bottles and was subjected to a special inspection,” Pan said. “One reason was that I had been caught carrying one or two extra bottles about a decade ago. I never expected Customs would still have that record.”

“Customs now uses big data and broad, systematic screening. That is why few people dare to work as parallel traders anymore.”

Demand for Fine Wine Dries Up

Tighter enforcement is only part of the story. Smuggling has also declined because mainland demand for classified-growth Bordeaux has weakened, while market prices have continued to fall.

“If nobody is drinking it, nobody will bother bringing it in,” said the Shenzhen importer who requested anonymity. “Frontline sales are poor and there is little drinking at the consumer end. Nobody wants to sit on a huge pile of inventory, so smuggling is inevitably affected.”

Wu Xianghua, CEO of Fine West and a longtime seller of classified-growth Bordeaux, said changing supply-and-demand dynamics are reshaping the grey market.

“One of the main consumption occasions for Bordeaux classified growths has traditionally been social – business entertainment and gatherings with friends,” Wu said. “Their reputation gives them value as social symbols.”

“That applies to popular estates across different price levels, from Lafite, Mouton, Lynch-Bages and Beychevelle to less expensive wines such as La Tour Carnet and Cantemerle, which appeal to mainstream consumers looking to experience classified-growth Bordeaux.”

But the cultural influence of Bordeaux has weakened, he said.

“In recent years, declining business demand, the economic slowdown, the loss of mystique surrounding these wines and even an ageing population have reduced Bordeaux’s power to shape wine consumption,” Wu said. “Demand has fallen as a result.”

These changes are affecting the supply of classified-growth wines across every sales channel. Even the illicit trade cannot escape a weak market.

As wine consumption has declined in mainland China and globally, inventories of fine wine have accumulated. Some importers have left the business, while prices for certain labels have fallen below their landed costs.

That has eroded one of smuggled wine’s main attractions: its lower price.

As Vino Joy News previously reported, several well-known Bordeaux estates are now sold in China through cross-border e-commerce platforms. Because eligible cross-border imports receive preferential tax treatment, their retail prices can fall below average international prices before tax.

“I recently spoke with a fellow fine-wine importer in Shenzhen who told me that Cantemerle was selling through cross-border e-commerce for just over RMB 170,” Pan said. “At that price, grey-market wine brought over from Hong Kong simply cannot compete.”

Storage and logistics in Hong Kong are far from cheap, he noted. At the same time, some wines in mainland China are already trading below their landed costs, while cross-border e-commerce platforms continue to offer Bordeaux labels at heavily discounted prices.

Together, these forces are squeezing what little room remains for Hong Kong’s parallel wine trade.

As Shen put it: “Nobody wants to take a high risk for a low return.”