The Deputy Prime Minister directed to handle foreign tobacco shipment at Quy Nhon port

Quy Nhon port. Source: Internet

The Deputy Prime Minister agreed to the proposed content of Steering Committee 389 from the Ministry of Finance and requested the Ministry of Finance to urgently solve the case. If there are sufficient elements of violating criminal law, they must be prosecuted and investigated to tackle strictly according to law.

Furthermore, to entrust the Ministry of Finance to continue directing the General Department of Customs to collaborate with the relevant authorities in order to investigate and verify the case. The Permanent Office of National Steering Committee 389 to monitor, supervise and report to the Head about the result of investigation and handling the case.

According to the Permanent Office of National Steering Committee 389, from the hotline of National Steering Committee 389, foreign tobacco shipments at Quy Nhon ports (Binh Dinh) have signs of violations; the Permanent Office of National Steering Committee 389 has transferred the information and collaborated with the Anti-smuggling and Investigation Department, General Department of Customs to verify the information.

At the same time, the Permanent Office of National Steering Committee 389 has directed the General Department of Customs, and the Permanent Office to regular coordinate closely and speed up the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department, Binh Dinh Customs Department and related units in the process of examination and investigation.

From 28^th July to 17^th September, there were 21 containers of cigarettes shipped from overseas to Quy Nhon port following the schedule: Hamburg, Rotterdam - Germany, Netherlands-Singapore-Quy Nhon; Philippines-China-Malaysia-Quy Nhon; Philippines-China-Malaysia-Singapore-Quy Nhon. The total number of shipments was 10,178 million bags of foreign cigarettes, total values of over 42 billion VND.

According to results of the investigation, the shipment is imported by Import- Export and Trading PNA Company Limited Company (PNA Company) to do a trans-shipment procedure, the Company is a services unit, the freight owner is a Chinese enterprise.

PNA Company presented the dossier to propose for transferring the gate of this shipment. Accordingly, the company purchased goods from 7 enterprises in different countries to sell to Chinese enterprises.

In the trans-shipment dossier, the information on the bill of lading showed that the consignee is a Chinese enterprise (DONGXINH Nian WEI TRADE CO., LTD). However, on 4^th October 2016, PNA Company wrote an explanation document and provided bill of lading on the trans-shipment dossier, the name of the consignee is PNA Company.

The Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department verified at the Co. JGLWW Logistics Vietnam, this unit answered that it cannot adjust the information of consignee (from DONGXINH Nian WEI TRADE CO., LTD to PNA Company).

As the request of the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department, China Customs verification, the Company DONGXINH Nian WEI TRADE CO., LTD did not sign the above contract with PNA Company and did not purchase or import the above tobacco shipments.

Over the duration of doing Customs procedures as prescribed, the freight owner did not come to do procedures, the Sea Squadron control of the central region (Squadron 2, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department) conducted an inspection under administration procedure. The Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department has held in custody over the entire shipments.

Until now, the above shipment did not have a specified legal owner. To tackle in accordance with the law, the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department has announced to find the owner of the cigarettes shipment on the mass media and public listing in the office. In case if overdue 30 days since the announcement without determined legal owner of the consignment, all goods will be confiscated.