Coordinating with the investigation agency to clarify 213 lost containers

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Prohibited goods were seized by the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department in transit at Cat Lai port in early 2017. Photo: T.H.

Regarding the case of 213 lost containers of goods in transit through Cat Lai port to export to Cambodia in mid-2015, how did the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department detect and handle, Sir?

From April 2015 to date, based on the direction and plan of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has actively directed the anti-smuggling forces of the Department and Customs Branches as well as competent forces such as the Department of Anti-smuggling and Investigation, the Ministry of Public Security, the market management of HCM city to control goods in the form of transit, and actively collect information, prosecute many cases to transfer to the investigation agency to seize hundreds of containers of prohibited and used goods.

Through coordination between the General Department of Vietnam Customs and the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City, they have discovered 213 containers of 56 enterprises out of the port without legal cause.

Implementing the instructions of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has directed the Customs Branch of Saigon port, Zone 1 to review the work related to officials who have implemented Customs clearance and requested civil servants who moved to another department to look up the declarations which have been assigned but not yet implemented the BOA order (confirmation of goods in transit which has been implemented Customs procedures at the border gate of departure).

Also, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department also asked the relevant Customs officials to report to consider the responsibility. At the same time, the Customs Branch of Saigon port, Zone 1 set up a team to handle the independent transport declaration (assigned to a leader of a Customs Branch as head of the team) to conduct the verification whether 56 businesses are still active or not; carry out verification at the shipping company, port business agency on the clearance of 213 containers.

Through cooperation with shipping companies, Tan Cang Sai Gon Corporation to review and clarify the number of containers which have not been found, what are the results, Sir?

Through the review and verification of the Customs Branch of Saigon Port Zone 1 and Tan Cang Sai Gon Corporation, up to now, 151 transcripts have been collected and stamped by Tan Cang Sai Gon Corporation on a total of the 213 containers. Currently, the task forces collect and verifies the records from the remaining votes (62 votes) on the list of 213 declarations.

In your opinion, in this case, how do Customs officers make mistakes and how sophisticated smuggling tricks of the business are?

The Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department and the authorities are continuing to clarify the case to conclude the wrongfulness of Customs officers and the sophisticated fraud tactics of the business.

However, this case showed that the exploitation of enterprises in this type, as well as loopholes in the management of transit goods, so enterprises changed the mode and tricks to transport prohibited goods into the inland.

On the other hand, the business data transfer to the system of independent declaration can be carried out multiple times for a single shipment of independent transportation, thus generating a virtual declaration, while the recovery to clear the system for virtual declarations takes a lot of time and many steps, especially for some enterprises which are no longer active for import-export.

In many cases, after being approved by Customs officer for clearance of goods (BOA), enterprises still have the right to request the cancellation of the BOA, additional declaration and correction of Customs declaration. The Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department said that the system made it difficult to monitor the shipment of independent transport.

After clarifying the mistakes committed by related civil servants, how did the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department handle it?

In the case of 6 out of 213 containers in the system to remove the BOA, civil servants explained and the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department to report to the General Department of Vietnam Customs to request the Department of IT and Customs Statistics to determine when civil servants removed the BOA to clarify responsibility for handling.

Currently, the investigation agency (C46) has issued a decision to prosecute the case, the Ho Chi Minh Customs Department shall continue to closely coordinate to clarify the violation of the enterprise and severely deal with offenses committed by Customs officers and civil servants.

In the past time, in order to fight with sophisticated frauds of enterprises, what did the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department do to detect, prevent smuggled goods, prohibited goods through Saigon port?

In recent years, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has actively seized hundreds of containers of smuggled goods at Saigon port. Implementing Plan 85 of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department at the end of 2015, the Department actively screened the imported goods with suspicious signs, in collaboration with forces in the area as anti-smuggling forces under the General Department of Vietnam Customs, the Police, the market management to prevent many illicit goods. The forces of the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department detected and seized nearly 200 containers of refrigerated and used electronic products on the list of prohibited goods imported into Vietnam. The Department continued to coordinate with the authorities to seize hundreds of containers at Cat Lai port.

Shipments which were detected and seized at the port were mostly carried out by the Customs office because shipping companies refused the goods or did not operate at the registered business address. Commodities were mostly electronic and refrigerated goods that were banned from importation.

In addition to the above tricks, some perpetrators also took advantage of the type of transit in order to re-export goods to the market of Vietnam consumption. In fact, there are several cases where the original consignee was declared on the manifest as a business in Vietnam when Customs or other competent forces detected a shipment showing signs of a breach of Customs legislation. Then, companies did not come to the Customs office to conduct procedures, but they came to Cambodia and other countries for conducting transit procedures.

Vietnam Customs speaks about 213 containers in transit at Cat Lai port VCN- 213 containers in transit at Cat Lai port (HCM City) were inspected and discovered by the ...

Thank you!