The Northern Central: The highest number of smuggling cases that occurred in the whole country

Each year, the Control Force of Quang Tri Customs detects and handles the highest number of incidents in the area. Picture: Quang Hung.

There are 103 cases of violation each day

As noted by the Standing Office of the National Steering Committee 389, the North Central region (including provinces: Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue) emerged as the smuggling hot spot for; illegal transport of wood, and wood products, commercial fraud in the petroleum business, and production and trading of fertilizers and pesticides of poor quality. In particular, the situation of smuggling, the illegal transportation and trading with various types include: cigarettes, alcohol, beer, firecrackers, explosives, drugs, coal, minerals, electronic household goods, pharmaceutical productions, cosmetics, dirty food, functional foods, sugar...

Taking advantage of the mountainous topography, trails, rivers and streams, and the kinship relations of people on both sides of the border, the objects tried their best to smuggle and transport illegally the goods cross border. In the field of import and export, with the policies of temporary import for re-export, border gate transfer, port transfer across the territory of Vietnam to other countries sharing the border, goods can be imported into Vietnam illegally… Noticeably, some objects faked the papers to expropriate VAT.

Not only complicated in the border areas, inland, the national highways, and railways crossings in the North Central provinces are often targeted by the smugglers to transship the smuggled goods, counterfeit goods, poor quality goods. In addition, taking advantage of awareness of a part of the masses to produce, advertise, purchase petroleum, counterfeit and poor quality functional food, and other essential consumer products without origin or being processed, even mixed, cloned, labeled as famous brands... for consumption in the remote areas.

Particularly in 2017 and first quarter of 2018, the functional forces of 6 provinces in the North Central region discovered and handled 47,069 cases. There were 103 cases of violations each day, accounting for 16% of cases arrested by functional forces in the whole country (the average number of incidents in 2017 is 225,824 cases- the reporter).

According to statistics, at the same time, the functional forces have detected and processed 42,576 cases of smuggling, illegal trading and transporting of forbidden goods, counterfeit goods (drugs, firecrackers, explosives, sugar, illegal imported cigarettes…), of which there were 1,115 criminal cases and 4.416 administrative violation cases. There were 541 violation cases for poor quality petrol purchasing and transporting, (1 criminal case, 540 cases of administrative violation); 243 cases of imitation and poor quality fertilizer and pesticide…

As assessed by the Standing Office, the Steering Committee 389, the provinces in the North Central Region had grasped seriously and implemented effectively the direction of the Government, the Prime Minister, the National Steering Committee 389: Decree, Directive; Official Telex, Plan on fighting along the lines, and key items. For example, Resolution 41 on promoting the fight against smuggling, trade frauds and counterfeit goods in the new situation; Directive No. 30 on strengthening the fight against smuggling cigarettes... created a strong change in the direction of management.

Legal documents have not been synchronous and consistent

The representatives of the Steering Committee 389 for provinces in the North of Central Vietnam reported on the lack of uniformity and unification of legal documents, managing and handling of violations in smuggling, trade frauds, and fake goods, slow adjustment, modification, and addition overlap, that caused many difficulties for handling by the functional forces. Specifically, regulations on handling acts making corrupt use of the State's policies to appropriate VAT; making corrupt use of the sales invoices to legalize smuggled goods; preserving the violation evidences, handling the means of administrative violation… On the other hand, the sanctions were still light, not enough of a deterrent; the technical means equipping the forces in the performance of their tasks were lacking; transporting, preserving and sampling the evidences of petroleum, fertilizer and plant protection drugs... were complicated and prolonged, that caused difficulties for investigation, verification and treatment of the violation evidences for the functional agencies. Moreover, the process of dealing with violations related to lines and groups of smuggling, trade frauds and counterfeit goods was slow, many cases failed to find the head objects. In addition, coordinating, exchanging, supplying, sharing the information among the forces had been limited, not in time and efficiency was not good.

Provinces proposed to deduct the labor costs of anti-smuggling, trade frauds and counterfeit goods, in order to provide the necessary technical equipment for the functional forces to ensure the effective implementation of the assignment. Particularly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Science and Technology should chair and coordinate with the localities to solve uniformly, the preservation and disposal of seized evidences of faked and poor quality fertilizers and pesticides, and guide the implementation of localities. In the field of import and export, the Customs offices should coordinate with neighboring functional forces in grasping the situation of temporarily imported goods for re-export, border-gate transshipment goods, port transferring goods, through the Vietnamese territory to countries sharing borders, especially for wines and cigarettes... the Steering Committee 389 for the provinces and cities in the region should exchange information, assess the situation, share experiences in leading, directing the implementation of tasks to improve the efficiency of coordination work, overcome timely weakness and deficiencies.