An Giang Customs: Peak of anti-smuggling at the end of the year

	Strict control and supervision of goods and vehicles crossing An Giang border gate
	Strictly control imports and exports through Khanh Binh border gate
	An Giang Customs supports imports and exports while raising revenue

Tinh Bien Customs, in collaboration with other forces, seized more than 1.1 kg of gold

Contraband goods illegally transported across the border

Although smuggling and trade fraud on the borderline has been strictly controlled, smugglers still find ways to bring contraband goods across the border. They often take advantage of the night and places far from the checkpoints to stealthily bring goods across the border into Vietnam in small quantities, said the leader of An Giang Customs Department at the conference on control and prevention of smuggling and drugs last weekend.

Deputy Director of An Giang Customs Department Dinh Van Tuoi said that smuggling and illegally transporting goods across the border is still a problem. The infringing goods are mainly foreign cigarettes, cosmetics, and gold; smugglers often change methods, transport routes, time, and gathering places on the border to avoid the patrol and control of anti-smuggling forces. In particular, in recent times, the illegal transportation of gold and currency across the border has been increasing. As a result, customs branches prosecuted three cases.

According to Deputy Director of Vinh Xuong Border Gate Customs Branch Phan Van Tam, the branch seized seven cases in the past nine months. The illegal transport case of VND360 million across the border was prosecuted and transferred to the police for investigation.

For sugar products, the suspects still use tricks of changing packaging to Vietnamese labels or remaining packaging with Cambodian labels and use boats, shells, large-capacity motorboats, and other vehicles to transport from Cambodia to Vietnam. Currently, on the borderline, many operating sugar production factories often consume smuggled sugar. Particularly at the Vinh Xuong border gate, the Customs agency discovered three sugar factories, which is a big challenge in preventing smuggled sugar.

An Giang Customs Department has performed inter-sectoral coordination to strictly control the cross-border transportation of goods. The unit has sent customs officers to participate in the interdisciplinary working groups and some key areas to continue fighting against smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeit goods in An Giang province. According to the leader of the Customs Enforcement Team, foreign cigarettes are a sensitive item which has strong domestic demand and is easy to transport and hide. The Customs Enforcement Team seized 93 cases worth nearly VND12 billion infringing goods. The seized material shreds of evidence include cigarettes, white sugar, pesticides, fertilizers, chemicals, used pumps, explosives and electrical appliances.

Trade fraud from import and export goods

According to Deputy Director General Dinh Van Tuoi, smuggling has many different methods and tricks, such as not declaring or hiding and mixing smuggled goods with other goods. Notably, tax fraud on imported rice has emerged recently, and smuggled goods have been mixed with the shipments that have gone through customs procedures at the border gate. In addition, through customs inspection and supervision for exported and imported goods, the Customs authorities have discovered that the export shipment originating from China has signs of fraud on goods labels, false declarations about of origin of goods and paper packages without customs declaration in vehicles carrying imported mangoes.

Khanh Binh Border Gate Customs Branch detected the case of exported fake-brand fertilizers transferred to the Investigation Police Agency, An Giang Public Security, by the An Giang Customs Department at the beginning of July 2022. Accordingly, An Giang Customs Department proposed prosecuting the "Crime of manufacturing and trading in counterfeit goods which are animal feed, fertilizers, veterinary drugs, plant protection drugs, plant varieties and livestock breeds" under Article 195 of the Penal Code 2015 (amended and supplemented in 2017).

In addition to cases detected, An Giang Customs Department warned of abusing regulations for cancelling and revising declarations to deal with risk assessment and channelizing the customs system to evade the inspection and control of Customs authorities or legalizing infringing shipments; making multiple declarations for a shipment and choose the green channel declaration for customs clearance; deliberately misrepresenting goods' names, codes, quantities, types and specifications in order to be classified into the green channel by the customs system; cancelling the declaration if the goods are classified into to the red channel and then open another one.

An Giang Customs Department said that smuggling and hoarding of goods for the Lunar New Year 2023 are forecast to increase in the rest of the year. In addition, tax evasion and fraud through prices, tax rates, product policies, counterfeit goods and poor quality goods are still a problem.

Accordingly, Deputy Director Dinh Van Tuoi requests the units based on the control plan of the Department, the plan of each unit, the actual situation of the locality and the methods and tricks of the smugglers to develop specific plans; assign specific tasks to customs officers in charge of information collection, investigation, research and inspection of smugglers in the locality and build secret bases, measures and contact person to buy information to fight against smuggling and trade fraud effectively.

Variety of tricks in transporting contraband VCN – The situation of taking advantage of express delivery services, and goods consignments for illegal transport ...

Furthermore, An Giang Customs Department continues to closely and flexibly apply customs control measures to implement regulations and guidelines effectively. The Department will develop a Peak Plan to fight against smuggling during the Lunar New Year in 2023; work with other authorities to strengthen patrol and control work, especially before, during and after the Lunar New Year.