Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department: Strictly control areas under its managament

Smuggled cigarettes were seized by the Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department.

At the border in Le Thanh border gate, Duc Co district, Gia Lai province, the developments of smuggled cigarettes are still complex, especially in the two sides of the border gate, paths and trials and 2 communes of la Nan and la Dom, Duc Co district, Gia Lai province. Due to mountainous terrain with various shortcuts, so tobacco traffickers have taken full advantage of the terrain to carry the cigarette to avoid being detected. Recently, on October 25, 2017, at Doc Do road from Cambodia to Vietnam, the Customs Control Team detected more than 2,200 packages of foreign cigarettes were hidden in the bush, covered with grass by smugglers waiting for transport to the domestic market.

Mr Tran Thanh Van, head of the Customs Control Team under the Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department said, during this patrol, the Team was always followed, tracked, threaten by smugglers. Previously, during the patrol in the two sides of the Le Thanh border gate, the Le Thanh Customs Branch detected a case of illegal transportation of over 1000 packets of cigarettes branded Cow Boy Original across the border.

Smuggled woods hidden in the containers were spotted and seized by the Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department.

Since the beginning of the year, Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department has seized 12,000 packets of smuggled foreign cigarettes and predicted that during the Lunar New Year, it will increase and have complicated developments.

While smuggled cigarettes develop sophisticatedly in the Le Thanh border gate, violators often transport smuggled firecrackers and woods in the Bo Y border gate. In the early October 2017, during the patrol at the Bo Y border gate (Ngoc Hoi District, Kon Tum Province), the Customs Control Team detected a person carrying suspicious goods, they asked the trafficker to inspect, but he left the goods then fled into Laos.

The Customs team has chased but due to it was dark and rainy, the road was slippy so the trafficker quickly escaped into the forest. Through inspection, the left goods were 34 kg of firecrackers, originating in China.

The Gia Lai – Kon Tum Customs Department seized smuggled firecrackers.

In Bo Y border gate, the Bo Y Customs Branch detected Bao Huy Trading and Import Export Co., Ltd has activities of trade fraud as importing maize seeds in the declaration but hiding woods with 467 sticky wood bars (equivalent to 17.27 m3), 104 wood bars of rose-wood (equivalent to 0.36 m3) and 13.4 tons of root and branch wood of rosewood and bdalbergia cochinchinensis. All of them were hidden at the behind and middle of the container to avoid the detection of the functional forces. By inspection, the Bo Y Customs Department has decided to sanction administrative violations of Bao Huy Trading and Import-Export Co., Ltd with the total amount of 95.75 million vnd due to violations of regulations on customs declaration; tax evasion, tax fraud, violations of regulations on export and import goods management policies. In addition, Bao Huy Trading and Import-Export Co., Ltd are obliged to re-export all timber and bamboos from Vietnam due to lack of import license.

Mr. Ha Thai Long, Head of the Customs Department of Gia Lai - Kon Tum, said that the fight against smuggling, trade frauds and illegal transportation cross-border has always been carried out regularly, closely, strictly by the unit leaders to control the management area, not to generate hot spots, smuggling groups. In the remaining months of 2017 and the Lunar New Year 2018, the Customs Department of Gia Lai - Kon Tum directed the units to strengthen professional measures to control and timely arrest cases of smuggling and illegal transportation cross the border.