Nghe An Customs: 3 experiences in fighting against smuggling

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Statistics from Nghe An Customs Department show that, in the period 2021-2023, the unit has presided over and coordinated with agencies and competent forces in the area to arrest, handle and transfer to other agencies for handling 134 violations.

Of these, there were 71 drug-related violations; 53 cases related to materials, explosives, and firecrackers; 11 cases involved vehicles such as cars and motorbikes without documents; 1 violation of FO oil transportation; 1 case of cross-border money transport exceeding regulations without declaration; 2 cases of forest products are all kinds of wood and hundreds of violations have been detected and administratively handled during customs procedures.

According to Mr. Chu Quang Hai, the above arrests are mainly specialized cases of fighting against traffickers and illegal transporters of drugs and firecrackers of all kinds; Drugs of all kinds alone account for more than 50% and fireworks account for nearly 40% of the total arrests.

It is known that in recent years, Nghe An Customs has synchronously and drastically implemented many solutions from the department level to the civil servant level to improve the effectiveness of anti-smuggling and trade fraud. However, the above results do not reflect all the difficulties, shortcomings, and limitations, especially the reasons for success and the lessons learned from the entire process of task implementation.

On July 30, 2022, Nghe An Customs coordinated with the Police force to arrest a person transporting 156 kg of fireworks.

Mr. Chu Quang Hai said that the difficulties, limitations and shortcomings in the fight against smuggling at Nghe An Customs are mainly due to the fact that Nghe An is the largest province in the country with a 419 km long border next to Hua Phan, Xieng Khouang and Bo Ly Kham Xay provinces of Laos. In addition, the administrative boundary is wide with 10 mountainous districts, including 5 high mountainous districts and up to 5 ethnic minorities including the following ethnic groups: Thai, Tho, Kho Mu, Mong, and O Du living in the mountainous districts.

The area is so large and complex, but the force of civil servants doing customs control work is too thin and modestly staffed. In particular, most civil servants working in control work have limited ethnic language skills, leading to many difficulties in propaganda work, mass mobilization, and base building. Besides, the biggest current problem of Nghe An Customs is criminal proceedings. Although the Law on Organization of Investigation Agencies and the Criminal Procedure Code stipulate the responsibilities and powers of investigators, however, up to now Nghe An Customs has not been able to prosecute any case, the leader of Nghe An Customs Department emphasized.

With the achieved results, as well as the difficulties, limitations and shortcomings, leaders of Nghe An Customs Department shared some lessons learned in the fight against smuggling after each project or case.

First experience, the Standing Committee and leaders of the Department must pay attention to the work of controlling; Must regularly provide the education of political ideology on enhancing the sense of responsibility in performing tasks, regularly thoroughly grasping that officials and public employees must synchronously apply professional customs control measures; Anti-Smuggling and Customs Offenses Handling Division must do a good job of forecasting the situation, to promptly advise the Department's leaders, so the Department's leaders can direct functional units to develop specific combat plans for every period of time effectively.

The second experience is that after each project or case, whether it fails or succeeds, the Project or Case Committee is required to hold a meeting to analyze to see the limitations and weaknesses in order to learn from experience. Through successful arrests, the Project Committee discussed and shared expertise on the closed process of implementing the project, from receiving information to processing information, solving cases and finishing the case.

The final experience is to do a good job of coordinating with functional forces in the area such as Police, Border Guard, Coast Guard anti-drug task force, Market Surveillance and local authorities. Only through coordination can the forces grasp all the information and situations in the area to effectively fight operations and cases.