Smuggled timber seized - declared as wooden handicrafts

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Precious wood was hided at the bottom of trucks.

According to the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate, on August 7, 2016, Manh Tien Dat Company, located at Hoa Binh, Dong Ky ward, Tu Son town, Bac Ninh province registered 3 electronic export declarations. The goods were declared as "wooden handicrafts". These declarations were automatically classified in “Yellow Channel” on the Customs system.

On August 8, 2016, Customs officers received information from the Working Group of Division 5 - C74 about an enterprise with signs of illegal goods transportation. In order to ensure confidentiality, Customs officers at the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi gathered goods and implemented Customs procedures for export as usual. At the same time, Customs officers carried out physical inspections of goods and vehicles in the area of Huu Nghi border gate. On the same day, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Quynh, a representative assigned by Mr. Duong Van Binh, Director of Manh Tien Dat Company came to the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate to implement Customs procedures. Accordingly, the declared goods were transported on 7 trucks: SB 12C-02 614; 12C-04 874; 12C-04 523; 12C-02 876; 98C-08 460; 30L-3147; 98C-11568. However, when functional authorities - Police, Customs and Border Protection forces requested physical inspections, the owners and drivers were uncooperative and left without observance of functional authorities’ requirements.

In order to make this enterprise cooperative with Customs authorities, the Director of the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate informed the enterprise about the change of channel into “Red Channel”, which means all goods have physical inspections. However, this enterprise proposed to arrange unloading themselves because of protection of wooden handicrafts. However, on August 9, 2016, the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate collaborated with the Working Group of Division 5 (the General Department of Police) and PC 46 (Lang Son Provincial Police), Cao Loc Forest Ranger (Lang Son province) to conduct physical inspections of goods on vehicle SB 98C-01.568. Through the inspections, Customs officers seized 1,350 kg of techicai sitan (a precious timber) which was not declared. Therefore, from August 9, 2016 to August 16, 2016, functional authorities implemented physical inspections of the other consignments of this enterprise. Apart from the goods in line with the declarations, functional authorities detected many kinds of precious wood (techicai sitan, sandalwood and rose-wood) which were not included in the declarations.

In order to prove undeclared goods to be precious wood, on August 16, 2016, the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate implemented procedures for sampling inspections to determine the scientific names of the timber. Also, functional authorities carried out temporary seizure of the goods which were not declared by the enterprise.

Speaking with a Customs Newspaper’s reporter, Mr. Tran Bang Toan, the Director of the Customs Branch of Huu Nghi border gate said, on August 19, 2016, the Department received the assessment results from the Forest Industry Research Institute (Forest Science Institute of Vietnam) for the wood samples. Accordingly, undeclared goods such as techicai sitan, sandalwood and rose-appear in "Table IIA Forest plants in Group II”, which is limited for commercial purposes and is on the list of endangered animals and plants under Government Decree 32/2006/ ND-CP. Particularly, techicai sitan is also included in "Annex II" in the list of wild animals and plants specified in the Annexes of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ( CITES) issued with Circular 40/2013 / TT-BNNPTNT.

From August 19, 2016 to August 21, 2016, functional authorities conducted physical inspections and classification of consignments of the wood. Accordingly, there was a total of 19,631 kg and 1,370 m3 of timber. Specifically, 1,520 kg of rosewood; 67 kg of sandalwood and 3,689 kg of techicai sitan with 325 m3 of logs; 3,100 kg of wood of complex shapes; 4,030 kg of wooden planks and 409 m3 of sawn wood.

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Mr. Tran Bang Toan added that the functional authorities dealt with the violations of this enterprise. Notably, after 7 trucks containing the precious wood were seized, on the night of August 9, 2016, many perpetrators removed goods and even replaced license plate of trucks to deal with authorities. But this behaviour was quickly discovered by functional authorities.