Poverty Behind the Glitter Two narrow cots took up most of the space in the 6-by-8-foot tent-shaped structure put together from shipping crates.

Carpenters and tinsmiths flocked here too, looking for shipping crates and scrap metal.

Also, explained Shih Yen-shiang, vice minister of economic affairs, some generous overseas souls shipped crates marked simply "Donation to the government."

Amassing the largest score for design and livability, the University of Virginia team built a house with an exterior of reclaimed copper cladding and trellises made from shipping crates.

The wood is coarse and of fairly low value, used for pallet boxes, shipping crates, and similar purposes where a cheap but strong enough wood is suitable.

I shipped crates of them to make it look legitimate, but every time I wired that I'd sent a shipment, I was actually putting in an order.

Once in a while we also attract cagey characters wanting to exploit our reputation to ship large anonymous crates without attracting customs attention; them we fend off, hastily.

The companies claim that they generate more than €200 million per year by sharing warehouses, containers, shipping crates, seagoing vessels and customs-related processing.

They'd been busy laundering a lot of the take, running it through furniture stores because of the high cash flow, not to mention all those shipping crates of stuff with great hiding places.

The pair had apparently planned this, since they shipped crates full of illegal weapons from lax Shanghai into Britain on their boat.