A large-scale offshore anti-smuggling exercise organized by Nanning Customs was launched in Beibu Bay of Beihai Sea in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Thursday.

The exercise, the most comprehensive in the history of the General Administration of Customs, was aimed at building up the country's anti-smuggling forces and improving their overall combat capability.

Involving 350 people and dozens of anti-smuggling vessels, the exercise included chases of high-speed motorboats and seizure of boats with "smuggled" goods.

In the first 10 months this year, the customs nationwide ferreted out 10,091 smuggling cases, with total value of 4.74 billion yuan (US$566 million).

The number of smuggling cases rose 6 percent over last year's same period.

(People's Daily November 23,2001)