Fighting against smuggling and fraud on the sea in the last months of the year

Major General Tran Van Nam

Can you tell us about the current situation of smuggling and trade fraud at sea?

In the first nine months of 2021, the criminal situation and smuggling and trade fraud at sea continued to be complicated in most sea areas. Through monitoring, smuggling and trade fraud activities still focused on traditional goods such as petrol, coal, cigarettes, electronic goods, refrigeration, foods. Besides that, the smuggling of rare animal products from abroad to Vietnam continued to re-emerge.

The main operation area of smugglers was the sea area of Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Nghe An, Da Nang, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Ca Mau, Kien Giang and the international sea routes from Africa, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to Vietnam. Those smugglers used many sophisticated tricks such as setting up front legal entities to legalise trading and transportation; divided goods into small amount which was below the level of criminal sanctions (tobacco); use invoices illegally; taking advantage of the policy of temporary import and re-export to smuggle goods into the inland; taking advantage of difficult weather conditions to transport contraband. Notably, in recent times, the situation of smugglers fighting back against competent forces was common.

Criminals also took advantage of complex situation of Covid-19 pandemic and the scarcity of goods and necessities to commit illegal acts, trading and importing contraband goods illegally.

Could you tell us more about the outstanding results of the Coast Guard force in anti-smuggling and work against trade fraud at sea?

Since the beginning of the year until now, the Coast Guard has organised two peaks against crime, anti-smuggling, trade fraud and anti-counterfeiting.

The first phase was before, during and after the Lunar New Year of 2021; the second phase was at the peak of drug prevention and control in June. During the two peak periods, the Command of Coast Guard directed units to fufill tasks such as verifying information, strengthening and coordinating with forces to grasp the situation, fight to prevent and control the situation, fight against law violations, and ensuring security and safety on the sea.

Through deploying drastic measures, Coast Guard detected and handled 39 cases with 148 subjects. The exhibits seized over 3,500 tonnes of coal, nearly 1.9 million litres of DO oil and nearly 24,000 kg of FO oil, 3,500 kg of animal bones, rare animal horns and wildlife animals, firecrackers, and more than 11,000 kg of smuggled seafood. All of the above cases were strictly handled in accordance with the law and the value of goods sold to the State budget was more than VND 40 billion.

From the beginning of the year until now, the Coast Guard had directly and cooperated with competent forces to successfully destroy 164 cases and specialised cases, seized 223 drug-related crimes. Exhibits seized were nearly 41 kg of heroin, 99.4 kg of synthetic drugs, 524 grams of marijuana, four guns, eight bullets, 15 cars, more than 2.2 billion VND in cash and many related exhibits. In particular, the Coast Guard prosecuted 57 cases with 63 subjects.

The Coast Guard strengthened patrol, inspection and control in key sea areas; synchronously implement solutions to coordinate with competent forces in preventing and combating crimes of smuggling, trade fraud, and illegal transport of goods at sea. In addition, disseminating legal policies, especially the provisions of the Law on Vietnam Coast Guard to raise awareness and law compliance of fishermen so they did not participating in, covering up, joint hand with smugglers to illegal trade, transport of petrol and oil.

The results showed that Vietnam Coast Guard had done a good job of grasping the situation in sea areas, using drastic measures to fight and handle violations in accordance with the law. At the same time, the legal professional force has worked with competent authorities and forces to fight against crimes and violations at sea and handle and hand over cases for processing effectively, associated with Covid-19 pandemic prevention and control.

What do you think about the situation of smuggling and trade fraud at sea in the last months of the year?

According to the situation of smuggling and trade fraud at sea in general in the last months of the year, especially near Tet holiday in the current pandemic conditions, I think many complex developments would arise. In particular, many subjects will take advantage of the difficulty in cargo clearance via road and air routes and the local scarcity of goods and necessities to commit violations. Along with that, criminals would also take advantage of the fact authorities are focusing on pandemic prevention and control to carry out illegal activities on all routes, including sea routes.

Meanwhile, there was a huge difference between domestic price of petroleum and aboard, so the demand to buy illegal petroleum taking place at sea was forecasted to continue to increase. Methods of smuggling and trade fraud will certainly fierce, including the use of modern scientific and technical equipment at sea such as the ability to observe from a distance, receive information and warning to deal with and monitor competent forces. These were the things that we could identify.

In addition, we also believe that criminals might carry out collusion activities in remote seas, bordering between Vietnam and other countries to easily escape, fleet to other waters, and avoid the pursuit of forces. Therefore, despite the turbulence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the complex weather, from now until the end of the year, the Coast Guard would strengthen coordination with competent forces in the fight against trafficking and transport oil and petrol illegally on the sea.

Moreover, to both carry out pandemic prevention and performing reconnaissance and grasping the situation in the seas to fulfill anti-smuggling task, the Coast Guard would also increase the use of patrolling ships to check, control, prevent and combat in a timely and effective manner against smuggling and trade fraud as well as law violations in the last months of the year.