Ho Chi Minh City: Prosecuting many cases of smuggling and trading counterfeit goods

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25,000 bottles of fake branded perfume were discovered and prosecuted

Criminal prosecution of many cases

In the first 5 months of 2024, units that are members of Steering Committee 389 of Ho Chi Minh City have inspected and examined 7,773 cases; including checking and handling 1,203 violations of banned goods and smuggled goods, 5,964 violations of trade fraud and 606 violations of counterfeit goods; prosecuted 27 cases with 41 subjects; The total amount collected and paid to the budget is more than 1,362 billion VND.

In cases of violation, Ho Chi Minh City authorities and Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department have prosecuted many cases of smuggling goods through seaports and airports. At the end of December 2023, Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Sub-department issued a decision to prosecute Nghi Te Trading Company Limited (address 19, Street 6, Thang Loi residential area, 4218DT743A, Chieu Lieu quarter, Tan Dong Hiep ward, Di An city, Binh Duong province) on the crime of "Smuggling".

According to the case file, Nghi Te Trading Co., Ltd. opened a customs declaration to declare imported goods of 3 containers of machinery, equipment and supplies; A total of 19 items, 100% new, made in Taiwan, weighing nearly 28 tons, worth over 889 million VND. The Customs agency physically inspected the goods and based on the notification of the inspection results of the Quality Measurement Standards Technical Center 3, the goods did not comply with the customs declaration, including used machinery, not meeting the conditions, standards and regulations prescribed by law for import, wrong type and quantity.

Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Sub-department said that in order to bring used goods (on the list of prohibited imports) into Vietnam, Nghi Te Trading Co., Ltd. fraudulently declared the names of goods and condition of goods by declaring new, unused goods. Thus, Nghi Te Trading Company Limited violated Article 18 of Customs Law No. 54/2014/QH13; Decree 69/2018/ND-CP dated May 15, 2018 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Foreign Trade Management; Decree 128/2020/ND-CP dated October 19, 2020 of the Government regulating penalties for administrative violations in the field of customs; The value of the infringing goods is at a level that constitutes a basic crime according to the provisions of Article 188 of the 2015 Penal Code (amended in 2017) regulating the crime of "Smuggling".

In addition, Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department has transferred more than 10 cases with criminal signs to the Police Investigation Agency and Ho Chi Minh City Police to investigate and prosecute according to their authority. Among them, there are many cases of illegal transportation of drugs by air with very sophisticated tricks.

Not only have many cases of smuggling and illegal transportation of goods been prosecuted, many cases of trading and storing prohibited goods and counterfeit goods have also been prosecuted by the authorities. In early 2024, Ho Chi Minh City Investigation Police Department decided to prosecute the case, prosecuting two defendants for the crime of "Producing and trading in counterfeit goods" to investigate and handle according to regulations. Previously, Ho Chi Minh City Police along with the Market Surveillance force inspected the warehouse at Tan Thoi Hiep Street 29 and the business location on Dong Hung Thuan Street, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City, discovering nearly 25,000 products that were fake branded perfumes. All of this shipment has no invoices, purchase documents or product origin. According to the initial testimony of the owner of the above goods, this perfume was brought here for storage, then directed the subjects under his control to organize a livestream to introduce and sell it to customers on social networks.

Many new tricks

According to the assessment of Steering Committee 389 of Ho Chi Minh City, the situation of crime, violations of smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeit goods at sea is still complicated. Criminals and violators have increased their activities strongly. Goods are mainly transported and stored through important seaports such as Cat Lai port, ICD Phuoc Long, Hiep Phuoc, VICT, etc and the coastal area of ​​Can Gio district.

Subjects mainly falsely declare the quantity and type of goods for smuggling purposes, in which the trick of declaring temporary import and re-export of goods to a third country has emerged, then smuggling them back by dividing the amount of goods into small parts cross the border and collect them in Ho Chi Minh City for consumption. At the same time, taking advantage of the openness in import-export policy, subjects declared imported goods transferred to border gates (type A12), goods arriving at ports in Ho Chi Minh City or Tan Son Nhat airport, but opened their electronic accounts at other border gates such as Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Long An, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, so goods control falls under the jurisdiction of other provincial authorities.In addition, subjects who mix smuggled goods with goods are entitled to the Green channel and Yellow channel to avoid having their goods inspected or only having their records checked without physically inspecting the goods. Subjects who establish and use "ghost" companies that do not operate at the registered address will, after a short time, change the name of the company to another operating company to avoid the attention and monitoring of the authorities. .

At the conference to deploy the tasks of Steering Committee 389 of Ho Chi Minh City over the weekend, leaders of PC03 - Ho Chi Minh City Police said that new smuggling tricks have recently emerged, with subjects taking advantage of this form of buying and selling FO and DO oil are temporarily imported and re-exported to bring the oil to domestic consumption. In early 2024, Ho Chi Minh City Police destroyed an oil smuggling ring taking advantage of the temporary import and re-export of DO and FO oil by a group of subjects masterminded by Le Tan Hoa. Investigation results showed that, taking advantage of the process of transporting oil through the legal entity Saigon Transco Petroleum Transportation Company Limited, Le Tan Hoa directed company employees to contact foreign ships to negotiate the purchase of part of the delivered oil (goods subject to temporary import for re-export) without completing customs declaration procedures according to regulations, putting them into domestic consumption, gaining illegal profits, etc.

Realizing that the situation of smuggling and trade fraud in the area is strictly controlled, businesses and people have raised their awareness of law compliance. However, with new sophisticated tricks, smuggling and trade fraud are still complicated. Therefore, in addition to well performing the tasks and functions of each force, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Van Dung, Head of Steering Committee 389 of Ho Chi Minh City, proposed four key anti-smuggling agencies of Ho Chi Minh City, including: Customs, Police, Border Guard and Market Surveillance need to have smooth coordination to investigate and thoroughly handle smuggling and trade fraud cases.