(Yicai Global) Nov. 26 -- Chinese authorities are planning a crackdown on the country’s express delivery sector as an increasing number of contraband items, including drugs, guns, ammunition, explosives, fake medicines, counterfeit money and endangered wild animal products, are delivered unwittingly by third party agents.

It is very difficult to detect crimes of sending illegal items, Yuan Ming, head of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate’s second procuratorial office, said. Criminals can easily escape detection given the private nature of communications and payment.

The postal service is considering registering the ID cards of those from whom the parcels are collected and to whom they are delivered as well as introducing package inspections and using security machine checks, said Jin Jinghua, head of the State Post Bureau’s market supervision department.

Some 11,235 people were prosecuted for trafficking drugs through courier services between 2017 and 2020, 8,782 for sending guns and explosives and 1,153 for distributing wild animals products, statistics showed.

Express delivery revenue now accounts for more than 1 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Each day, courier firms deliver around 300 million parcels, Jin said. In the last 10 years the delivery volume has jumped 35 times, reaching 83.36 billion parcels in 2020 from 2.34 billion in 2010.

Editor: Kim Taylor