Smuggled gold across An Giang border

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The perpetrator with 18 kgs of smuggled gold arrested by An Giang Customs at the end of 2016. Photo: D.N

Cases of gold smuggling

In the morning of March 11, 2017, at Tinh Bien Town, Tinh Bien District, An Giang Province Tinh Bien Customs Branch - An Giang Customs Department arrested a woman carrying 8 kg of gold and 100 million Riel cross the border. In this area at the end of 2016 the Customs forces arrested a perpetrator smuggling 18 kg of gold across the border. This issue proved that smuggled gold is common across the An Giang border.

At 4 am on March 11, 2017 when the border was still foggy, the Customs officers of Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch received information from local units about women carrying gold and money via the Tinh Bien border gate. The Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch collaborated with Tinh Bien International Border Gate Station to arrest. The Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch inspected in detail the swag and identified Vuoch Hea, born in 1957, transported 100 million Cambodian Riel and 8 kg of gold across the border, with the total value about of 7.6 billion vnd. The Manager of the Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch, Huynh Ngoc Ho signed the decision to prosecute the smuggling case and transferred the case dossier to the Police Authority for further investigation according to its competence.

Previously, at the end of 2016, the Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch arrested Mr. Rim Ri Linh, born in 1966, the Deputy Head of the Police Station of Phnom Dien International Border Gate (Cambodia) who smuggled 18kg of gold through border by car. Mr.Rim Ri Linh declared that he was asked by a person name Ti to bring the gold to Vietnam for a woman on a bridge near Nha Bang town. When Mr.Linh brought the gold through the Tinh Bien border gate, he was arrested by the Border Gate Customs forces in collaboration with local forces. Through verification, the total amount of gold transported by Mr. Rim Ri Ri weighed 18 kg and was worth about 16 billion vnd. The Tinh Bien Border Gate Customs Branch prosecuted the case and transferred to the Police Authority under the An Giang Public Security for further investigation.

Implicit smuggling of gold across border

The results of anti-smuggling in 2016 as well as the first months of 2017 show that smuggling across the An Giang border area still takes place, and gold is still continuously hot with smuggled cigarettes and sugar. In previous years, cases for gold smuggling were established and successfully destroyed by the An Giang Customs Department showing that gold smuggling occurred regularly across An Giang border. The case of more than 100 pieces of gold jewelry was seized by the Khanh Binh Customs Branch under the An Giang Customs Department when implementing the administrative examination for two passengers Mr. Chun SoKun and Ms. Than Lang on entry to Vietnam. The case of Khanh Binh Customs Branch in collaboration with An Giang Police arrested two perpetrators named Ha Van Thien and Tran Van Dien carrying 15kg of gold in a passenger car from Chau Doc to Ho Chi Minh City. The case of An Giang Customs Enforcement Team arrested Tran Minh Thien smuggling 4kg of gold and $US 3,000 across the border. The case of the An Giang Customs Department arrested Nguyen Thi Khen and her son Nguyen Chi Hieu for smuggling of 24 kg of gold across the border, etc.

In fact, It is extremely difficult and complicated to apprehend gold smugglers across borders. According to the An Giang Customs Department, because the gold is a valuable commodity, domestic smugglers often associate with smugglers on the other side of the border for transportation. A Customs officer involved in the arrest of smuggled gold said that the smugglers disguised and sometimes pretended to be cross-border sellers, sometimes to be tourists, even to be monks to transport smuggled gold.

Besides, An Giang border area is near Chau Doc City, where tourists are crowded, so the ability to "lose" the perpetrators is very high in the process of monitoring. The border area includes plains, rivers and canals, which makes it hard for functional forces to arrest perpetrators because they can escape from Vietnam to Cambodia very quickly.

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Relating to anti-smuggling through An Giang Border Gate, Mr. Tran Quoc Hoan, the Director of the An Giang Customs Department said that at the meeting on deploying anti-smuggling control in 2017, the leaders of the Department directed sub-departments to pay attention to anti-smuggling; Review and select the target subjects and areas to have the effective fighting plans. Mr. Hoan added that the results of gold arrests across the border were the efforts of officials and civil servants in charge of anti-smuggling control in the unit but also showed that the ​​An Giang border area was always complex and the Customs control force can not be subjective and attentive.