Great progress reported in settlement of suspected cashew nut scam in Italy

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

As of April 3, Vietnamese companies had recovered 12 out of 35 containers of cashew nuts exported to Italy whose original documents was lost, a positive progress thanks to great efforts and active support of relevant parties.

The office of Lawyer Davide Gallasso and colleagues said that Vietnamese companies have regained the ownership of 9 containers of cashew nuts via negotiations and confirmation with the buyer named in the documents that they are in fact not related to the shipment.

The lawyers tried their best to work with an Italian company named on the document, which then confirmed that it was not related to the above-mentioned 9 containers and had never purchased goods from Vietnam.

Based on that confirmation, Vietnamese businesses can change the bills of lading of those 9 containers to sell to new buyers in a very short time, minimizing losses.

In addition, Vietnamese businesses have also paid a guarantee for a shipping company to bring three other containers back to Vietnam.

Another good news in the case is that so far, Vietnamese businesses have managed to re-export 18 containers to the Netherlands and Turkey.

The lawyers has cooperated with the Vietnam Trade Office in Italy to connect with reputable overseas Vietnamese businesses in Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium, and Hungary to help find new buyers in Europe. Currently, a number of partners have shown interest and are considering buying these goods.

Layer Gallasso recommended that when exporting goods, Vietnamese businesses should choose safe payment methods, learn carefully about import partners, and should be proactive in chartering means of transport to better control the original documents and goods.

According to the Vietnam Cashew Association (Vinacas), through a Vietnamese broker, several cashew nut exporters had signed contracts to export 100 containers of the product to Italy, to be transported by international shipping lines Cosco, YANGMING, HMM, and ONE to the ports of Genoa and La Spezia.

The sellers reported that there were changes made to the SWIFT code in the documents of collection sent from Vietnamese banks to those allegedly representing the importer in Turkey. The Turkish banks declared the buyer is not their client and said they had sent back the documents. It is noteworthy that those banks neither specified how they had sent back the documents nor provided Vietnamese banks with bills of lading.

Meanwhile, after some documents of collection were sent to the buyer’s bank in Italy, the Italian bank replied that it had received only copies of the bills of lading, not the original versions, causing rising concerns among the exporters as the whereabouts of the original documents remain unknown. Anyone with the original documents can present them to the transporters for the release of the goods./.