Handling more than 10,000 cases of customs violations in eight months

	More than 12,000 customs violations handled
	More than 1,000 customs violations handled in April

A customs officer of the Lao Bao Border Gate Customs Branch (Quang Tri Customs Department) uses a sniffer dog to inspect transport on entry. Photo: Quang Hung

On the afternoon of August 31, the General Department of Customs released information about developments related to the fight against smuggling and trade fraud in August.

According to the General Department of Customs, in August, the situation of illicit trade and transportation of goods across the border, trade fraud, trafficking of narcotics took place complicatedly on both air and road.

Via the road, the suspects take advantage of bringing goods in transit from seaports and airports to bonded warehouses, then carry out procedures to export them to Cambodia or transiting them to a third country, using all tricks to break the seal to bring goods to domestic consumption. In addition, suspects often take advantage of the exemption from physical inspection of goods for smuggling and trade fraud.

For the air and express delivery, the suspects divide the goods, send them as gifts via express delivery, and declare the low value of goods to bring conditional imported goods and goods with high-value goods to the Vietnamese market. When detected, the suspects refused to receive the goods and request to return the goods to the sender, making it difficult for investigation and handling. The transportation of prohibited goods and goods managed under international conventions continues to take place with many forms and tricks.

To proactively collect information, grasp the actual situation in the area, promptly give customs instructions and management, the General Department of Customs has strengthened the direction, warning and inspection of instructions of operations for anti-smuggling officers in the whole sector.

Customs issued Decision 1766/QD-TCHQ dated 11 August 2022 on professional manual on drug control; Official Dispatch 2964/TCHQ-ĐTCBL dated 20 July 2022 on strengthening the drug prevention and combat of the customs force; developed and promulgated regulations on management, training and use of sniffing dogs to replace current documents that are no longer appropriate.

In order to improve the coordination efficiency, the General Department of Customs shall develop a regulation on coordination between the General Department of Customs and the Banking Inspection and Supervision Agency (the State Bank of Vietnam), and develop a regulation on coordination between police and customs forces in the fight against drug-related crimes.

During August, the Customs force found and arrested many cases of illegally trading and transporting goods across the border.

From July 16, 2022 to August 15, the whole Customs sector presided over and coordinated with other authorities to handle 1,324 violations, seized infringing goods worth more than VND175,334 billion; collected VND11.67 billion to the State budget, took five cases to the court and transfered 14 cases to other authorities.

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By August 15, 2022, the whole Customs sector chaired and coordinated with other authorities to handle 10,700 violations with infringing goods valued at VND4,168 billion; and contributed VND241,240 billion to the State budget, prosecuted 31 cases and transferred to other agencies to prosecute 83 cases.