Three Chinese men were taken into custody in Japan after they’d violated the terms of their visa by stocking up on hundreds of packs of disposable baby diapers.
Investigators said that the three men had filed visa applications to come to Japan as chefs at a Chinese restaurant in Akashi, SCMP reports. Immediately upon their arrival, however, they instead indulged in a five-day shopping spree, hitting up a total of 267 stores to purchase around 900 packs of diapers. With each pack containing 40 diapers, that amounts to an impressive stockpile of roughly 40,000 nappies.
The packs were stored in a warehouse and were meant to be shipped to China, investigators believe. The nap-sackers were detained in the Hyogo prefecture on October 15 and are expected to be deported.
Japanese-brand diapers have become a coveted product in China, and because of their superiority to most Chinese brands in terms of quality, are considered a luxury item. Japanese firm Diao Paper manufactures the particularly popular Goo.n brand disposable diapers, counterfeit versions of which have recently infiltrated the Chinese fake market.
Diaper traffickers are able to mark up the real Japanese brand nappies by up to 50 percent, according to SCMP, meaning these three traders were looking to rake in some serious moolah. (They would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling cops.)
WKND continues this Sunday, 12.30 – 5.30pm at URBN Hotel (183 Jiaozhou Lu), with free flow Vedett beer till the keg runs out!
