Prosecute the case of fraudulent license of imported medical equipment

Smuggled medical equipment was seized by HCM City Customs. Photo: T.H

Through the post-clearance audit for the import dossiers of medical equipment of CVS, Dong Nai Customs Department detected suspicious signs so they transferred dossiers to the Southern Anti-Smuggling Enforcement Unit (Unit 3) - Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Vietnam Customs) to expand the investigation.

As a result, Unit 3 discovered, among 24 sets of customs dossiers of 24 customs declarations, there were doubts about import licenses. In particular, the import license of 18 customs declarations had revised content and licensing dates; four sets of customs dossiers did not have original import permits; and two sets of customs dossiers did not have import permits as prescribed.

In the file belonging to the 18 customs declarations, many permits were heavily revised in terms of model, number of items in the permit appendix; many permits were used to correct the license term; some permits were modified many times in terms of the number of items to match with each quantity of imported goods. There were licenses of the same number and same year of the license, but the licensing date and items which were granted were adjusted.

Director of CVS Company admitted to forging import licenses of the above customs declarations, with the following devious, dastardly actions: Cutting, pasting more items not declared in the original license issued by the Ministry of Health; or correcting the original date, month and year of the license issued by the Ministry of Health which had expired. After that, they photocopied, stamped and lodged to the customs authorities for carrying out the procedures of importing medical equipment.

With this tricks, from 2011-2013, C.V.S. company opened 18 customs declarations for import of goods such as: input introducer sheath, central venous catheters, needles use for liver, lungs, bones biopsies, diagnostic catheters, heart valves and biological fittings , stent, balloon catheter, valves, worth a total. 1.495 billion VND.

Besides the licenses, the customs authorities also found six unlicensed shipments. In that, four declarations did not have the original import license (including photocopy). However, verifying at the Ministry of Health, the ministry said they did not grant four import licenses to C.V.S. company as attached in four customs dossier sets. The value of imported goods of these four declarations was more than 200 million VND.

Total value of goods that the enterprise imported according to 22 customs declarations (18 declarations using corrected licenses compared to the originals; 4 declarations using permits created by themselves without the original) was very huge - about 1.7 billion VND.

The above acts showed signs of smuggling as prescribed in Article 155 of the Criminal Code in 1999, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department has issued a decision to prosecute a criminal case of "smuggling", transferring dossiers to Police agencies for investigation. /.