New fraud, smuggling tactics emerging

VCN- According to the HCMC Customs Department, despite witnessing a reductionin smuggling and commercial fraud in the first six months of 2016, many new and sophisticated methods have been observed.
new fraud smuggling tactics emerging
Smuggled goods discovered by the HCMC Customs Department – Taken by T.Hoa

Smuggling isvaried in many ways

Analyzing violationsrecentlydiscoveredby Customs, leaders of Customs enforcement team - HCMC Customs Department said that besides the previouslyconventional tricks (taking advantage of channel classification,declare goods with smaller amount and tax tariff rate), recently new tricks have appeared. For example, enterprises initially open a declaration of import, after receiving information about the coordinated inspection, they wouldopen an extra non-trade declaration to legalize the undeclared cargo, the number of non-tradable goods is half or nearly equal to the amount ofgoods thatenterprises have declared on theearlier import for business purpose declaration.

Besides, now enterprises take advantage of transit, only declaring thename of representedgoods in the cargo declarationto evade the control of the Customs authority. For conditional import commodities, such as milk, cosmetics etc. after receiving information of inspection,enterprises will adjust to the type of transit. As an example, H.N.Trading Co.Ltd., originally declared on the manifest groceries and agricultural materials, then later, adjusted the manifestfor transit to Cambodia.

Some businesses take advantage of processing for export goods declared as raw materials to be processed for export but,on fact to import prohibited goods. Another example, MB Vietnam Co.Ltd., opening declarations for importing raw material for processing (E21) at Investment Goods Customs Procedures Team, declared as raw materials such as apparel fabrics, zippers, buttonsetc100%new, Korean origin.Checking the actual goods they were used electronics, electrical appliances, automobile engines, automobile parts and cosmetics, medical devices.

Not only smuggling prohibited goods but also for imported scrap, in some cases,the Customs enforcement team has discovered differences between the consignee on import declarations and the consignee on the E-Manifest, enterprises take advantage of the ease in manifest adjustment to evade the rules and policies of importedscrapmanagement.

Taking advantage of loopholes

Not only suong new methods and tricks, some enterprises also take advantage of the shipping lines management, shipping agents, forwarders, port authoritiesoperations. Accordingly, some collude with shipping agents in theissuance of bills with the incorrect information to the reality of theimported consignment in quantity, weight, description of goods, the name of the consignee, consigneretc There are cases where actualgoods are completely different from the information on the e-manifest system, even different from the original bill of lading and manifest. And when questioned by Customs authority,they adjusted the manifest. WhenJapan Customsconducted verifications, some records on container consignee show at Japan Customs didnot match the name of the consignee on the bill of lading.

According to the Customs enforcement team, stipulation on the establishing and submitting of house bill information is carried out by carriers, shipping agents or forwarders. However, there is no provision to bind the responsibility of the shipping lines, shipping agents, or forwarding companies for the content of information that they haveestablished and submitted leading to the issuance of bills. Currently, there are no public documents ofdetailed instruction on house bills issuance and also no provisions for which agents are allowed to issue legally house bills.

Besides, enterprises also take advantage of a number ofregulations onadministrative penalties administrative for violations. In fact, for the case of import goods that violate both tax and conditions of technical standards, according to current regulations, only violating onconditions of technical standards behavior is punished and forced to re-export. Taking advantage of this, smugglers conduct importing goods that are requested on conditions of technical standards (the license of the Ministry of Industry and Trade), Ensure milk (published by the Ministry of Health),... but declare the goods with 0% tax rate; when discovered, they would only be punished for ineligible technical standardsgoods with fines of 30-60 million vndand forced to re-export.

Currently, there are no penalties for wrong seals. This is a loophole that smugglers could take advantage of by joining with shipping agents and workers at ports to cut seals, exchange smuggled goods, and thenre-seal with another seal, then carriers just make certified records withCustoms for legalizing. Sanctions for wrong declaration of goods’ amount and name toprocessing, processing for exported enterprises are notdeterrent enough, while the value of violations is huge, if not detected, the number of smuggled goods transferred onto the domestic market and the tax revenue lossesare huge...

Smugglers and other involved in trade fraudusually take advantage of the flow of goods classified in the Green and Yellowchannel, i.e. goodsthat are exempt from physical inspection, to declare the tax rate of 0%, while actually the goods should attract high tariff, or they attempt to smuggle goods on the import prohibition list.
By Le Thu/ Luong Ngoc

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