La Lay Customs prosecute smuggling case of valuable timber

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Customs officers inspect contraband goods

The Branch proposed the People's Procuracy of Dakrong district, Quang Tri, transfer the case to the Investigation Police Agency for further investigation.

According to the Quang Tri Customs Department, the La Lay Border Gate Customs Branch inspected wood products, suspected as rosewood and tracwood, and petrographic analysis results for stone items, suspected to be chalkstone.

According to the assessment results of the Forest Industry Institute, the seized wood products included 56,776 m3 of sawn timber, 14,601 m3 of round timber, 105 kg of rosewood and 5,816 m3 of sawn timber. 16kg of tracwood and 0.177 m3 of other timber were also seized.

The species of rosewood (Dalbergia oliveri) and tracwoood (Dalbergia cochinchinnesis) are both included in the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. This is reflected in Notice 296/TB-CTVN-HTQT, dated November 27, 2019 by the CITES Management Authority of Vietnam and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Contraband goods. Photo: Provided by Quang Tri Customs

Also, according to the inspection results, the goods suspected as chalkstone are certified as Pyrophylite.

The Quang Tri Customs Department held an interdisciplinary meeting with the People's Procuracy of various provinces to discuss the settlement of the case.

Based on the conclusion at the meeting, the La Lay Border Gate Customs Branch issued Decision 165 to take the above case to court.

The La Lay border gate Customs Branch sent a document to the Property Valuation Council in the criminal proceedings of Dakrong district to request for valuation of three kinds of goods which have been not declared.

The goods were valued at more than VND3.8 billion.

As reported by Customs News, on August 19, 2021, based on signs of violations, the La Lay border gate Customs Branch searched seven trucks of the An Tran Import-Export Company Limited, Ward 5, Dong Ha City, Quang Tri.

On August 20, the branch sent Official Letter 442/HQLL-NV to the La Lay International Border Gate Border Guard Station, requesting coordination in inspection and control.

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As a result, the seven container trucks carried nearly 450m3 of wood of all kinds. In which it was discovered that the An Tran Import and Export Co., Ltd. fraudulently declared more than 84m3 of wood and more than 77m3 of rare and precious wood (suspected to be rosewood and Trac wood).

In addition, the containers held nearly 11,000 kg of ice (suspected to be chalkstone) without an import declaration.