Taiwan's courts handed down heavy prison terms in an unusual drug-smuggling case, a win for customs officers who spotted the trick.

• Smugglers hollowed out three heavy excavator buckets shipped from the US and packed 227 kg of cannabis inside, split across hundreds of bags.
• Keelung customs flagged the shipment in January and let it move on to a warehouse in Taoyuan to catch the receivers.
• The plan fell apart when the man collecting the goods could not cut the steel buckets open with a grinder and was arrested on the spot.
• His phone led investigators to the middleman running the operation remotely; a third figure who funded the scheme is still named only by nickname.
• The Keelung District Court gave the middleman 10 years and 10 months and the receiver 5 years and 8 months.

Outlook: Both sentences can still be appealed, and the funder behind the ring remains at large.