Hai Phong Customs: Use "magic eye" to detect ivory

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Operation at the Center of container scanners. Photo: Thai Binh.

At the Center of container scanners of the Hai Phong Customs Department in mid-November, a reporter of the Customs Newspaper found that the operational activities were busier than usual. The team leader of the Center of container scanners (under the Risk Management Division), Mr. Le Huy Thanh said, in a working day, 2 container scanning systems (fixed and mobile) covered approximately 80 containers. But recently, under the instruction of the General Department of Vietnam Customs on the inspection and control of shipments suspected of ivory and wildlife product trafficking, the Center of container scanner has focused on shipments from key areas of ivory smuggling such as African region. Therefore, in the peak day, there were up to 100 containers scanned by these systems. The strengthening of scanning is to ensure effective control of suspicious shipments, promote Customs clearance faster and detect violated shipments.

The team leader, Mr. Le Huy Thanh said that with shipments of wooden products (a new method of hiding the ivory which has been discovered in the city), it would normally take about 1 day by manual inspection. But it could only take some minutes to inspect if we use the container scanning systems. On the other hand, scanning images also help Customs officers easily discover shipments containing ivory. Thus, the control of ivory will be ensured, not affecting the clearance time of enterprises well observing the Law.

In addition to strengthening the control of shipments with a high risk of containing ivory, it is notable that the Hai Phong Customs Department has focused on training civil servants directly operating the scanning systems in 2016. The team leader, Mr. Le Huy Thanh said that, from the beginning of 2016 to date, there were 2 training courses for civil servants. In particular, the important content is training civil servants how to analyze the scanning images. Because at present, perpetrators are trying to disguise prohibited goods with sophisticated tricks attempt to "delude" Customs officers and "invalidate" the scanning system.

From the beginning of 2016 to date, the Hai Phong Customs Department has applied advanced scanning for suspicious shipments. To mid-November, there had been 126 containers scanned in advanced with 22 violated containers related to wrong categories and prohibited goods.

According to the Centre of container scanners, from the beginning of 2016 to 15th November 2016, these 2 container scanning systems had covered 19,896 containers. In particular, there were 557 suspicious containers to be disclosed and 99 out of 557 containers were violated with the total amount of administrative penalties and taxes of nearly 2 billion vnd. The recent violations are mainly related to commercial fraud and tax evasion, while the violations related to prohibited goods decreased significantly in quantity compared to the past. Especially, from the beginning of 2016 to date, there was no ivory smuggling detected in Hai Phong while in the past, there were a lot of ivory smuggling cases.

However, from the beginning of 2016 to date, the number of containers scanned fell by 14% compared to the same period in 2015. For this issue, the team leader of the Center of container scanners said that according to the guidelines of the General Department of Vietnam Customs and the Hai Phong Customs Department, the risk management criteria and the number of goods to be scanned were refined to increase the detection rates of violation and facilitate the clearance of goods of enterprises well observing the Law. This is the main reason that the number of containers scanned has been reduced compared to the same period.

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The team leader of the Center of container scanners added that a new point in the use of container scanners in the Hai Phong Customs Department in 2016 was the collaboration with the Hai Phong Police Force to discover an illegal transportation of 414 mobile phones hidden on top of passenger cars (in February 2016). If Customs officers did not use container scanning systems, it would be difficult for them to detect these smuggled goods. This was also the first time that the Hai Phong Customs Department collaborated with other forces to use container scanners.