Drug criminals take advantage of increasingly sophisticated technology

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The trick of hiding drugs in the air purifier was discovered in May 2023, at Noi Bai International Airport.

At the online conference about the results of the first 6 months of the year; directions and solutions to perform tasks in the last 6 months of 2023 of the General Department of Customs, Deputy Director of Hanoi Customs Department Nguyen Truong Giang said that many tricks for illegally transporting narcotics from abroad into Vietnam Nam has been debunked.

According to the leader of the Hanoi Customs Department, in the past years, especially in the first months of 2023, the situation of illegal trading and transportation of narcotics by air under the management of the Hanoi Customs Department took place very complexly.

Criminals take advantage of the facilitation and transparency in the provisions of the law on import and export activities to trade and illegally transport narcotics via air, post, or express delivery with the increasing trend in both nature and extent, especially goods through Noi Bai international airport border gate Customs Sub-Department and long-term warehouses.

Hanoi Customs Department has coordinated with functional forces to continuously detect and fight to discover many lines of illegal transportation of narcotics via air, express delivery and post from European countries such as: Czech, Polish, German, Dutch, etc to Vietnam to consume and seize a large amount of drugs.

Especially, in the first 6 months of 2023, the above situation tends to increase and not only in Hanoi, the subjects also operate in many provinces and cities nationwide (HCMC, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Da Nang, Quang Binh, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, etc).

In the first 6 months of 2023, Hanoi Customs Department detected and arrested 35/15 cases, reaching 233%, establishing and implementing 5 specialized projects; seized about 680 kg of drugs of all kinds; coordinated arrest of 23 subjects, including 2 foreigners. Typically, the HP323 project is chaired by Hanoi Customs Department in collaboration with PC04 – Hanoi City Police.

On February 20, 2023, at Terminal T2, Noi Bai International Airport, Hanoi Customs Department coordinated with functional forces to check luggage sent from Poland to Hanoi, thereby detecting and arresting 1 subject, seized 108 kg of drugs of all kinds.

According to the Hanoi Customs Department, through the process of fighting against drugs, many sophisticated transportation tricks have been identified.

In many cases, the subjects took advantage of forwarding, courier and domestic transportation companies with networks covering all provinces and cities in the country and having subsidiaries abroad to transport drugs from foreign countries to Vietnam under the guise of being ordinary goods.

Subjects tracked the journey of goods on the carrier's software, let the goods go around many stages and many provinces in order to cut off the tail of the functional forces before reaching the destination.

The subject often disguises and hides drugs very sophisticatedly in many different ways, and drug shipments are transported by air to Hanoi and then delivered to other localities.

Leaders often contact drug dealers in the country through social networks, use fake addresses or general unknown addresses, domestic subjects also often hire people to receive goods, so the fight and destruction of the functional forces encountered many difficulties. In particular, for each method of transporting objects, different sophisticated tricks are used to deal with the inspection of the authorities.

Notably, if in the past, subjects often only hid drugs in packages of functional foods, cakes, candies, toothpaste, animal food, shampoo, etc. Recently, subjects often regularly change tricks to hide drugs in machinery, electronic equipment, and household appliances (walls of microwave ovens, coffee makers, rice cookers, vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, etc).

In order to prevent, fight and suppress drug crimes, according to Hanoi Customs Department, it is necessary to continue strengthening coordination between units in the industry, between Customs forces and the Police to improve the effectiveness of prevention fight against drug crimes via air, express delivery.

At the same time, strengthen the coordination and exchange of two-way information, share experiences with specialized drug prevention and control forces and authorities to quickly detect new methods and new drugs.

Along with that, it is important to focus on strengthening international cooperation, information exchange, and legal assistance between countries in the field of drug crime prevention and control.