Who is behind the "bogus" business?

The number of prohibited goods arrested by the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City in Cat Lai in July 2017 belonged to a “bogus” business. Photo: Thu Hoa.

Can not find the owners

Recently, through inspecting 4 containers of imported goods of the NDT Trading and Service Limited Company, the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City discovered nearly 1,000 used refrigerators in the list of prohibited import goods. What is worth mentioning is that this company used the people's identity card of another person to set up the business. Expanding investigation, verification to handle, the Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City worked with the Planning and Investment Department of Ho Chi Minh City. Based on the registration record of the NDT Trading and Service Limited Company provided by the Planning and Investment Department of Ho Chi Minh City, the establishment of this company also had many mysteries, the name of owners were changed constantly. Accordingly, from April 25th, 2012 to April 11th, 2007, the legal representative of the NDT Trading and Service Limited Company was Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh; From April 12th, 1977 to July 9th, 1977, the legal representative was Mr. Dang Duc Dai; and from October 10th, 2017 until now, the legal representative is Mr. Le Thao.

The Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City verified the legal representative of the NDT Trading and Service Limited Company at the time of discovering the violation consignment, Mr. Dang Duc Dai. The irony is that Mr. Dang Duc Dai, born in 1987, was unaware of the establishment and operation of the NDT Trading and Service Limited Company. However, he revealed the information, he had stolen the motorcycle previously, the trunk of his motorcycle contained some important papers, including the identity card. As such, the subjects might have used Mr. Dai's identity card to set up the “bogus” company for smuggling purpose. The Customs Department of Ho Chi Minh City is coordinating with the functional agencies to handle the case under the regulations.

Some objects established from 2 to 3 businesses with the same address to commit smuggling behavior, but the legal representatives are not real, so that, both the Customs and the Police must work hard to verify, search... For example, the Gia Hung Thinh Construction Material Co., Ltd and the Phuc Giang Construction Co., Ltd. Both these companies were represented legally by Mr. Luu Tuan Anh, LUU licensed on June 9th, 2016, registered at 63 Nguyen Ba Huan, Thao Dien Ward, District 2, Ho Chi Minh City. After being licensed for operation, only in the short time from June to July 2016, these two companies opened dozens of customs declaration to import floor tiles through the Cat Lai port, declared low prices, denied consulting price to be cleared according to the regulations. When the Customs offices conducted post-customs clearance inspection, the companies did not cooperate, did not operate at the registered business address... so, their tax debt was over 3.4 billion VND.

In the face of the current situation, many “bogus” enterprises in the name of the violation goods import discovered recently by the Customs, in the direction of the leadership of the General Department of Customs, the Customs Control Team "dotted face, pointed name" 78 “bogus” businesses put into the list of key enterprises taken precautions.

Who is behind?

Finding a real owner to set up “bogus” companies is a big challenge for the Customs and the Police.

According to the leaders of the HCM City Customs Department, over the past time, dozens or even hundreds of containers of the smuggled goods, the prohibited goods arrested by the Customs authorities at the Saigon port had not been handled due to not identify the violation objects. The detected and arrested violations have only detected and prevented in order to avoid intruding into the domestic market, while the handling of violations, the handling of instigators and leaders of the prohibited goods lots have not been done yet. According to the leader of the Customs Control Team, after detecting and arresting the prohibited goods lots, in order to collect arrears the real owners of the goods, the Customs office took pains to go to the registered places of permanent residence of the business directors, coordinated with the Police and the local authorities look up, but the result has been zero: the companies did not operate at the business registration office; Directors of the companies did not reside in registered place of permanent residence or did not know about the operation of the companies that they were directors…

According to the Economic Police Department of the HCMC Police, the discovered violations showed that the objects of smuggling and commercial fraud used the fake documents to establish the companies. Besides, the opening of bank accounts was too easy to be abused by the bad objects. From the violations, the Police force extended the investigation, tracked the payment accounts, then, they detected that the objects had used the fake documents to open the bank accounts. When the goods were returned to Vietnam, the subjects hired the forwarding companies to carry out the customs procedures for importing the goods. When the authorities found out, they escaped, while the subjects in the name of the hired director, the forwarders were unknown completely the faces of instigators, and had information about the instigators. Since then, it has been difficult to prosecute, arrest the violators, fight with gangs, and lines of large-scale smuggling.