Attention Apple product smugglers: this is an informative video on how not to smuggle iPhones from Hong Kong to Shenzen (home of all bootleg gadget clones). Or, if you must resort to these ridiculous tactics, at least be smart enough to not get all your loot confiscated.

This news report by NTD Television is HI-larious and sad for a number of reasons. Maybe it's the fact that this guy taped 30 iPhones to his waist and his ankles or maybe it's because he has fake Nike Air Force One sneakers with steel plates in their soles that can stash four iPhones. Or, maybe it's because smugglers are trying to pass through borders with six sewn pockets inside a flannel shirt with three iPhones stuffed in each one.

And the smuggler would have gotten away with it all if authorities didn't notice he couldn't bend over to pick up his luggage. We imagine it's not really easy to walk with iPhones taped all over you.

It'd be really funny if this was all a gag for a hidden-camera reality TV show, but it's not. These smugglers are doing this to make a living. These smugglers travel to Hong Kong to buy iPhones, then sneak them back into mainland China because the phone costs $124 less. When you live in a poor Chinese village, flipping iPhones on the black market can be enough to feed your entire family for a month.

Think smuggling iPhones back into the country where they're made with menial factory workers is bad? The Apple situation in China is so awful that one man felt it was necessary to stab and kill a counterfeiter with a kitchen knife (who carries kitchen knives around?) who sold him a fake iPhone.

With Apple riding so high — as the most valuable company and as the leader in design and engineering, it's time we all take a step back, breathe, and remember that iPhones are just gadgets. It's not like it's gold — oh wait, in China it kind of is the new gold.

Via YouTube

(Thanks Chris!)