Director of Anti-Smuggling Investigation talks about cases of counterfeiting of LV, Gucci, Nike, Chanel brands

Director of the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Department Nguyen Hung Anh.

The information was shared by Nguyen Hung Anh, Director of the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Customs) at the Online Seminar "Finding solutions to combat contraband, counterfeit goods, intellectual property violations, protecting business protection and consumers” organized by Customs News on December 15.

Counterfeit goods

According to Nguyen Hung Anh, in 2021, the situation of smuggling, counterfeit goods and goods infringing intellectual property rights across the country did not tend to decrease. Especially goods that directly affect the interests of consumers such as: medical gloves, masks and medicines, medical supplies used to prevent Covid-19, consumer goods, food, functional food, modern medicine, traditional medicine; imitation fashion items of famous brands such as clothes, shoes, purses, suitcases, wristwatches; groceries, electricity, electronics, household appliances, machinery and equipment, fertilizers, plant protection drugs.

The key areas are Lang Son, Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, Hanoi and Hai Phong, areas of Ha Tinh (Cau Treo border gate), Quang Tri (Lao Bao border gate) and Da Nang, provinces along the border, Tay Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria - Vung Tau.

Customs has identified the main infringing methods related to counterfeit goods and goods infringing intellectual property rights such as: taking advantage of the separation of channels and exemptions from physical inspection of goods for fraud in quantity and type; false declaration, failure to declare on the declaration of trademarks of imported goods; smuggled through trails and openings; mixing infringing goods and non-infringing goods together, declaring low value to evade tax.

For goods in transit, it is necessary to take advantage of the declaration according to simple procedures to not declare trademarks, but only declare them as clothes and shoes in order to transport counterfeit goods of famous brands and then bring them back for local consumption.

Faced with that situation, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department actively advised the leaders of the General Department of Customs to issue Official Letter No. 1239/TCHQ-ĐTCBL dated March 17, 2021 to direct units in the whole industry on the work of the General Department of Customs to fight counterfeiting and protect intellectual property rights in order to carry out the implementation in the right direction, with the right focus, closely following the actual work and the requirements of the assigned tasks. Simultaneously, conduct investigations and research to grasp the situation, review data on professional programs to screen key subjects, and make plans to fight and arrest suspects.

Forging the origin of Vietnamese goods to evade taxes

For the act of violating the origin of goods, through information collection and investigation, the Customs force discovered that a number of Chinese people set up businesses in China, Vietnam and the United States to export products from China to Vietnam for the purpose of changing the origin of products or through simple production stages that have not yet met the criteria for HS code conversion or criteria of percentage value but still declare Vietnamese origin to export to the US to avoid tariffs.

In the country, there are a number of businesses taking advantage of the campaign "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods" to import, buy raw materials and products of Chinese origin and then produce fake goods of Vietnamese origin in the area of ​​customs operations and then dell them to the domestic market in order to deceive consumers.

From the above situation, the General Department of Customs has advised the leaders of the Ministry of Finance to develop Plan No. 1195/KH-BTC dated October 4, 2019 on inspecting, verifying and fighting counterfeiting of trademarks, origin fraud for purposes of smuggling, tax evasion, consumer deception, and illegal transmission.

The Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department advises the leaders of the General Department of Customs to develop Plan No. 441/KH-TCHQ dated October 18, 2019 on inspecting, verifying, fighting against trademark counterfeiting, origin fraud for the purpose of smuggling, tax evasion, consumer deception, illegal transmission to deploy throughout the industry.

During the implementation process, many violations of origin of goods and illegal transshipment have been detected.

Specifically, during the implementation of the Plan from October 18, 2019 to April 30, 2020, the whole country detected 42 cases of fraud, counterfeiting of origin, and labeling of goods. In which, the Customs authority issued a decision to prosecute two cases, forwarded information about the crime and provided case files to the security agency to investigate one case.