China exposes foreign postal plots to steal rare earths

Foreign agents have been using China’s postal system to “steal” rare earths, the country’s top security agency has warned, adding that it is cracking down on the smuggling channels.

In a statement posted on its social media account on Friday, the Ministry of State Security cited various tactics used by an unnamed country that it said could not produce its own rare metals and was stealing the minerals to shore up its own supplies.

The ministry said it had discovered that a foreign contractor had been shipping the restricted materials by packaging them with fake labels, falsifying the product names or sending the material through express delivery packages. It had also routed the packages through intermediary countries before sending them on to their final destinations, a method known as transhipping.

The ministry and other departments had since cut off the smuggling, “effectively safeguarding China’s resources and national security”, the statement said.

Other agents have bypassed China’s export controls by declaring high-purity rare earths, such as dysprosium and terbium, as low-value products like nickel powder.

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The ministry said rare earth materials were also being stashed in mannequins or mixed with ceramic tile material so they could be smuggled out of the country.