Sophisticated smuggling of synthetic drugs on Vietnam-China border

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15.8 kg of synthetic drugs was transported along the China-Vietnam-Cambodia-Thailand border on June 3, 2016.

260 million vnd/ kg of synthetic drugs

The Director of Drug Crime Investigation Department (C47-Ministry of Public Security), Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan said: “In recent years, Vietnam-China border has always been identified as a key route for complex criminal activities, especially trafficking and transporting of synthetic drugs. In practice, drugs which are mainly heroin are transferred from Laos to Vietnam for consumption or are transportated to China through the provinces of Quang Ninh, Lang Son and Lao Cai. Meanwhile, most of synthetic drugs which come from China are transported back to Vietnam”.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan stated: “Currently, Vietnam has about 203,000 drug addicts. According to statistics, the amount of synthetic drugs from China to Vietnam account for more than 90% of domestic drug consumption. The cases of heroin trafficking with a large amount to China have accounted for more than 70% and the rest is consumed in the domestic market. In the period 2010-2011, synthetic drugs transferred into Vietnam cost about 2 billion vnd / kg; but by August 2016, they only cost 260 million vnd/ kg. The reason is that there are more and more kinds of synthetic drugs and the price of drug materials has also decreased significantly.

Agreeing with this opinion, the Deputy Director of Drug Crime Prevention (the High Command of Border Guard), Mr. Ngo Thai Dung affirmed that: “Heroin mainly comes from Laos and Myanmar to Vietnam through the border of Vietnam-Laos; and synthetic drugs are transferred along the Vietnam-China border. In fact, the number of synthetic drugs seized in 2015 increased by 2.5% compared to 2014. In the first 6 months of 2016, the amount of drugs (heroin and synthetic drugs) increased by 4.6% over the same period. China is still the country mainly producing synthetic drugs.

In June 2016 - the peak month for implementing drugs prevention, the protection border forces discovered and seized 22 kg of synthetic drugs on the Vietnam-China border. In order to destroy these drug rings, the functional agencies applied many kinds of professional measures and built a strong network of supporters. But now, the border forces are facing difficulties on the secret stations on the Vietnam-China border. In theory, the amount of drugs crossing the border will be reduced if the two parties fight fiercely. However, in practice, the coordination between the two parties only comes from the joint patrols as well as building the twinned villages.

Coordination between local authorities and protection border forces

To transport drugs, criminals often exploit the trade crossings at the borders, as well as the bilateral trails to transfer drugs from Vietnam to China and vice versa. Most of them are Vietnamese people and Vietnamese citizens who live in China, who form the transnational drug rings. They even take advantage of unskilled residents at the border areas with no occupation or limited to transport drugs. On the other hand, some Chinese criminals try to penetrate into the Vietnamese market and cooperate with Vietnamese people to trade and transport drugs to China for consumption. Most of drugs are hidden in vehicles together with agricultural export and import goods across the border.

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Mr. Ngo Thai Dung directed functional agencies to seek solutions to improve the efficiency of prevention, combating and anti-smuggling. Specifically, the functional forces carry out the struggle and the propaganda and promotion should be implemented by Government. Therefore, the protection border forces, Customs and Police need to advise Provincial People’s Committees to do propaganda well at all levels, provinces, districts, communes and villages. Besides, the Government should reduce the demand for drugs, which leads to the reduction of drugs profit in the domestic market. Therefore, prevention and anti-smuggling should be done synchronously from inland to the border areas and vice versa. In addition, the authorities should further strengthen coordination and cooperation between the professional bodies of the functional forces along the border (Protection Border forces, Police and Customs) which are located in key areas such as Yunnan, Guangxi in implementing the schemes and plans.