A court in the island province of Hainan in southern China has sentenced a man named Chen Guoan to life in prison for smuggling cigarettes.
Three accomplices, Liu Zujin, Li Liangxing and Wu Fuzhen, were given jail terms of 15, seven and seven years, respectively, by the Haikou City Intermediate People's Court.
The four were found guilty of attempting to smuggle 781 cartons of cigarettes worth 1.44 million yuan (about 173,000 U.S. dollars) into China from Vietnam.
The group was seized by a police patrol boat in Beibu Bay on March 17 this year.