Anti – smuggling should be in closer coordination

Dong Thap police and Customs officers jointly patrolling in Hong Ngu county town of Dong Thap province

The method of smugglers, magnates and good owners is that they often tied the payment and loans with porters to make them protect their own "living means" with all costs, including attacking officers on duty as the last resort. In fact, the recent attack against the anti-smuggling force, demonstrates that the issue sometimes settles down but also increases, depending on the "heat" of the smuggled goods, but always raising potential risks for appropriate authorities.

Currently, most of the appropriate authorities such as Police, Customs, Border Defense, and market surveillance in the provinces have signed regulations on cooperation in the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and illegal goods transportation across borders. The signing of the regulations on coordination has promoted synergy in the fight against smuggling. Each force has its own powerful and weak points, if combined well, the result in anti-smuggling is more effective, minimizing the case of attacking or protecting officers on duty.

As for the recent arrest of smuggled goods in the border areas of Vinh Hoi Dong by Vinh Hoi Dong Customs Branch - An Giang Customs Department, in conjunction with the police forces patrolling the perimeter area of Cambodia - Vietnam border and discovered a motor boat carrying a large amount of smuggled goods. After checking the signs of smuggled goods, the task force requested the boat driver to direct the vehicle to Vinh Hoi Dong border gate Customs Branch to clarify the incident but the violators did not abide, continuing to control boat towards Chau Doc. Approaching a sand barge parking along the shore, the violators came close to the barge, tied on, shutdown the engine, removed the key and ran to the shore to escape. About 10 minutes later, more than 10 people launched the boat swags and poised to snatch the goods. Some violators had signs of agitation, and cursing. Seeing signs of resisting officers on duty, the task force recommended to get other forces involved. More than 20 minutes later, the border guard forces, police of An Phu district, Vinh Hoi Dong Commune Police, Customs-enforcement team of An Giang Customs Department were present and coordinated with the task force so that the hostile group was dismissed. If the other forces were not present in time, these illegal goods would probably have been dispersed.

Also at An Giang border areas, drugs & crime prevention department under An Giang Border Guard coordinated with Nhon Hung Border Station and arrested an illegal transport of cigarettes across the border. On the way to transport exhibits which contained 4 sacks of 2,000 packs of cigarettes to the station, 20 armed villains suddenly attack soldiers and robbed 1 sack containing 500 packets of cigarettes. The urgent situation required the task force to fire rubber bullets to protect exhibits and the force. Also at the border of Long An there have been many cases where porters robbed thousands of smuggled cigarettes after agitated residents screamed and threatened the force with failure. They left to find other porters then came back to attack and rob smuggled cigarettes. According to the functional forces, when smuggled goods are revealed or detained, villains incite people to scream and intimidate smuggling forces for wresting exhibits and find "supporting force" to assault, wrest exhibits.

Mr. Nguyen Tan Buu, Deputy Director of An Giang Customs Department said: "Based on the regulations of coordination, An Giang Customs Department has directed the subordinate units to pay attention to the coordination with functional forces like Police, Border Guards on duty of patrolling, controlling and seizing smuggled goods. For cases that are outside the Customs operation areas or arising from continuous pursuit from inside Customs operation areas to the outside, Customs has to quickly coordinate with other forces for timely seizure, also to prevent villains who oppose functional forces".

The effects of coordination for smuggling combat are clear, particularly Police and Border guards as big forces well-equipped with weapons and supporting tools would assist Customs. These forces will support the Customs forces and market surveillance more effectively in order to fight against smuggling and restrict attacks for swags. However, according to the assessment of the functional forces, the coordination in the border areas sometimes is not tight enough, mainly focusing on the general and periodic patrol plans. When there are unexpected cases, other forces appear to witness, not to actually cooperate. The first cause is the forces have not really trusted in each other and are afraid of revealing confidential information, because each force uses their secret base or collaborators. On the other hand, every force has its own task. Thus, unexpected coordination especially when smugglers attack functional forces usually takes time for supporting forces to appear due to poor contact maintenance.

All functional forces in charge of anti-smuggling have regulations on coordination from the high to the low level such as from the General Department to the provincial departments, districts, stations, checkpoints,... so the combination should be more substantial, closer to promote synergy in the fight against smuggling and force protection, and to minimize the opposition to persons on duty, which leads to casualties and losses of material evidence. On the other hand, the maintenance of regular relations among the border forces also needs to be more substantial and above all, each unit, each soldier, each officer must really trust each other, with a common purpose of restraining the smuggling and illegal trafficking of goods across the border.