Category: WeChat

Until now, the trending hashtag #Hawking security-detained items in WeChat group#(微信群叫卖安检扣押物品) has received 195 million views in total.

What does the transportation security administration officer do with all the items they seize during security checks? 

Sold in WeChat

According to the screenshot, the seller set up a WeChat group named “security-detained items”, with 56 members in total.

What they sold mostly were sunscreen sprays and moisturizing skin sprays.

“A” told the reporter that, “This spray in a large bottle costs 15 RMB. You can choose the brand by yourself. If there are no brands needed, the seller can select the substitute for you. Both wholesale and retail are available. It is cheaper to buy in bulk.”

When a buyer has doubts about the authenticity of these goods, the seller will send a photo of the “Notice of Dangerous Goods” to you.

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According to the regulations, the “Notice of Dangerous Goods” should be stored together with the detained items, so that the seller can prove that these goods are indeed detained during the security check.

“The group owner told us that, these goods are mainly from Beijing South Railway Station and West Station as well as Beijing Capital International Airport. Having already exceeded the “shelf period”, these goods are second-hand, but all in validity”, a buyer said.

Chinese netizens

Upon breaking out of this news, some said: “ I see my fixature, moisturizing skin spray, and …” 

Foreign netizens

Well, does this happened abroad?

One said, “It depends upon what it is. The primary rule is that TSA (federal government) cannot profit in any way from selling or otherwise disposing of the items. Many items just go into the garbage, such as liquids. Normally, items that can be resold are turned over to some state agency which may auction them to the public (see the previous answer).”

Another wrote, “I’m going to answer from an EU perspective, although things might differ from country to country. Everything that gets removed by airport security, considering the item was not of interest to police (i.e. items possession of which is illegal in the given country), is usually either disposed of (i.e. given over to garbage collection company for destruction or recycling, if possible), either it is kept by the airport for later use in training the security staff on detecting and handling of such items.”

Anyway, what netizens care about most is how to deal with these detained items?

“Actually, these detained items have its own processing flow, which is mustn’t be resold for a profit,” a relevant staff said, “Notice of  Dangerous Goods isn’t necessarily 100% true.”

The worker from Chenzhou, nicknamed Xiao Jiang, uploaded the clip on short video app Kuaishou, where it immediately went viral.

Xiao Jiang and his colleagues have to manually climb up the electricity pylon every day, according to Beijing News.

Some of the tallest steel towers he had worked on were more than 100 meters tall, he said.

“Since it’s really tiring to climb up the tower, we would only climb back down to the ground level for our lunch,” he told reporters. “For short breaks like these, we would just stay on the tower and take a nap,” he added.

“It was really scary for me at first, but thanks to the safety harnesses, I got used to it pretty quickly,” he said.

Many net users voiced respect for the workers on social media while others voiced safety concerns.

“It’s okay to have a power outage – please just make sure you get home safely. Your families are waiting for you,” one comment read on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.   

“Please be careful. Arrive home safe,” another said.    

“I have a fear of heights,” one person said. “I wouldn’t take that job even for 10,000 yuan a day!”

“You guys are heroes. Please be safe!” another said.