Preventing many banned goods across the Central Highlands

	Lack of domestic business strategies
	Many commodity lines are added into the List of Vietnam’s Imports and Exports 2017
	Over 1,100 air conditioners inside 3 smuggled containers

Illicit cigarettes were seized.

Blocking drugs and tobacco into the inland

From the beginning of 2017 to now, competent forces in the Central Highlands provinces have discovered and seized many cases of smuggling and illegal transportation of narcotics and smuggled cigarettes. Despite a low level, the situation of drug trafficking is quite risky and can break anytime. Specifically, at the end of June 2017, the Customs Control Team, the Customs Department of Gia Lai - Kon Tum in cooperation with Division 9, Police Crimes Investigation Department (C47) - the Ministry of Public Security discovered and arrested Mr. Tran Van Ninh (born in 1986, resided in Ngoc Hoi, Kon Tum) on illegal cross-border drug trafficking. He frequently transported illegal goods across the border gate of Bo Y border (Kon Tum province), then trafficked and transported narcotics from Laos to Vietnam for consumption. Accordingly, the confiscated exhibits were 3 packets of crystal drugs with a total weight of 238.55 grams.

Earlier, in February 2017, the Border Guard and Crime Division of Gia Lai province and Ia Nan Border Guard Station (723) arrested Nguyen Ngoc Tu (born 1980, residing in Ia Kha Town, Ia Grai District, Gia Lai Province) on the way to transport drugs into the border area for consumption. The exhibits included more than 1 gram of heroin, 1 motorbike, 2 mobile phones and over 7 million VND.

Similarly, as for the smuggled cigarettes, on 5^th July 2017, the Customs Control Team of the Gia Lai - Kon Tum Customs Department detected 1,000 packets of Cowboy cigarettes (total estimated value of 18 million VND) in the area of Le Thanh border gate. According to the Customs Control Team, smugglers often took advantage of the dark night to gather cigarettes at the forest trails, the wings of the two sides of the border gate waiting for transportation into the domestic market. Earlier, in May 2017, the Department of Drug and Crime Prevention - Border Guards of Gia Lai province collaborated with the Ia Nan Border Guard Station (723) to discover the car with plate number 81B-003.99 with suspicious signs. When the task force asked the driver to stop the car, he ran away to leave the exhibits and vehicles including 14,500 foreign cigarettes (20 cigarettes per packet).

According to the Steering Committee 389 of provinces in the Central Highlands, on the border, some Vietnamese people often hook up with Cambodian goods owners to take goods to border crossings to avoid tracking of competent forces. Besides taking advantage of loopholes of competent forces during breaks, holidays to cross the border to Cambodia to buy smuggled goods, and transported them to residential areas, domestic markets or sold them to other owners in the area. Perpetrators transported illicit goods to districts, communes in remote areas for consumption, taking the name of "portable" goods for consumption into the domestic market.

Preventing forests from "bleeding"

In addition to drugs and cigarettes, from the beginning of the year, the border area of the Central Highlands had illegal exploitation, sale, transport, and storage of woods in the border area. Especially, there have been activities of illegally transporting people, means of transport through Cambodia to exploit, trade, transport woods into Vietnam with many sophisticated and complicated tricks.

Specifically, at the end of May 2017, while patrolling at Bo Y international border gate (Kon Tum province), the Customs Control Team and the Gia Lai - Kon Tum Customs Department discovered a perpetrator illegally transporting 30 boxes of sawn timber, equivalent to 5.3 m3 across the border, gathering and waiting for transportation to the domestic market. Of which, there were 19 wooden boxes, equivalent to 3.4 m3 and 11 boxes of mahogany, equivalent to 1.9 m3 and a total value of 43.5 million VND.

In early 2017, Tuy Duc district police also detained a container truck and a crane for illegal wooden products transportation in the border area, including 106 normal sawn timber with a volume of nearly 25m3. Similarly, the Central Region Team (the Department of Narcotics and Crime Prevention - Dak Nong Border Guard Command) coordinated with Border Guard Station 775 to detect and arrest a perpetrator transporting illegal wooden products, including over 7.6 m3 of Starwood, over 2 m3 of incense wood.

3 containers transporting precious wood VCN- 3 containers which were declared on a Bill of Lading to contain 90 tons of rice ...

Due to the geographical features of the area with long border, adjacent to both Laos and Cambodia, with mountainous terrain, trails and openings, the fight against smuggling in the Central Highlands had still much difficulty. Meanwhile, because of the large profit, so many people still transported woods, drugs, prohibited goods across the border. Therefore, in the coming time, commodities such as drugs, timber, and cigarettes are still the key items that the authorities put into view to control and prevent thoroughly.