Ho Chi Minh City Customs discovered many cases of importing banned goods

Ho Chi Minh City Customs officers inspect imported goods. Illustration photo: T.H

During the first 5 months of 2024, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department presided over and coordinated with competent forces inside and outside the sector to detect and arrest 12 cases of illegal transportation of drugs and drug precursors of all kinds via air route. Most of them are disguised, hidden in luggage on immigration, or in personal non-commercial imported parcels from abroad to Vietnam.

Import old phones

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the Customs agency presided over and coordinated with competent forces inside and outside the sector to arrest the illegal transportation of goods such as used electronic devices (on the List of goods banned from import), mainly imported from Singapore and Korea to Vietnam.

In May 2024, Tan Son Nhat International Airport Customs Sub-department discovered a violation by the ground staff of a ground service company passing through the internal gate control area no. 2, that transported 1 paper bag containing 25 used iPhones, Samsung cell phones, and 100 bills shaped like 100 USD. Through quick exploitation, the violator admitted to receiving all of the above goods from a Vietnam Airlines flight attendant flying from Incheon (South Korea) and landing at Tan Son Nhat International Airport. After checking and detecting the violation, the Customs agency handed over the person and all evidence of the violation to the Police agency for investigation and handling according to regulations.

Also related to the transportation of prohibited goods, recently, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department fined a logistics company (Phu Nhuan district, Ho Chi Minh City) an amount of nearly 500 million VND for violations. Previously, on March 12, 2024, Tan Son Nhat International Airport Customs Sub-department discovered and made a record of administrative violations against this company for the act of "declaring falsely compared to reality" the name of the goods and the number of goods in transit". Infringing items include 78 used mobile phones.

With the implementation of many synchronous and drastic solutions in the fight against smuggling and trade fraud, the specialized anti-smuggling force as well as customs branches have effectively inspected, controlled, and prevented violations. In the first 5 months of 2024, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department presided over, coordinated, detected, and arrested nearly 700 violations with an estimated value of infringing goods of 1,575.99 billion VND. Including 6 cases of smuggling, 2 cases of illegal transportation of prohibited goods, 12 cases of illegal transportation of drugs (mostly transported via air route), and 667 cases of administrative violations in the customs field.

Among the violations, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has prosecuted 1 criminal case; transferred to another agency to request the prosecution of 20 cases; sanctioned 667 administrative violations with state budget revenue reaching 10.47 billion VND (down 46% over the same period in 2023).

Prevent the loss of revenue from internal resources

In addition to preventing smuggling and illegal transportation of goods, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department pays special attention to preventing loss of state budget revenue through customs professional measures. In addition to the goal of correctly collecting and fully collecting taxes for the state budget, through the work of preventing revenue loss, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department also hopes to create a fair and healthy business environment for businesses. This is also the commitment of the leaders of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department to the business community in implementing the plan "Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department and the business community are reliable partners, accompanying development".

Specifically, for the work of preventing revenue loss through price consultation, applying tax calculation codes, etc, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has seriously and effectively implemented the instructions of the General Department of Customs on customs valuation work, coordinate with sub-department to organize consultations quickly, accurately, effectively, and collect taxes correctly and fully for the state budget. In the first 5 months of 2024, through price consultation work, the entire Department has rejected the declared value of over 3,600 goods import declarations, increasing tax revenue for the state budget by over 30 billion VND.

In addition, border customs units proactively review and inspect the classification and application of tax codes on goods during customs clearance and post-clearance, focusing on groups of goods with large turnover and goods that are easily confused about codes, Green channel declarations, and items that have had documents guiding, directing, and notifying the results of analysis and classification by the General Department of Customs; cases, where the same item has many different codes, declared or results of analysis and classification are inconsistent in order to promptly collect taxes due to incorrect codes, preventing businesses from taking advantage of the openness of the law to cheat on codes and tax rates.

According to the leaders of Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department, to facilitate people and businesses, the Customs sector has applied modern customs management, applied risk management, and only physically inspected about 5% of goods, the remaining 95% are Green and Yellow channels (exempt from inspection and document checking). However, some subjects have thoroughly taken advantage of the openness of customs procedures to commit acts of smuggling, trade fraud, illegal drug trafficking, etc. Therefore, in parallel with the work of facilitating, preventing, and stopping violations of customs laws is always implemented synchronously by the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department.