On January 19, at the conference on summarising the work in 2020 and implementing the tasks in 2021 of the HCM City Market Management Department, the leader of this unit warned about the situation of firms renting warehouse space for large companies with a reputation as a place to hide contraband goods and counterfeit goods takes place very seriously.

The contraband warehouse discovered by the Department of
Information Management in District 8, HCMC

Nguyen Tien Dat, Deputy Director of the Department of Information Management of HCM City, said the smuggling situation, trade fraud and especially the situation of trading, transporting and storing smuggled goods with an unknown origin is complex. Currently, there are many businesses renting warehouse space from large and reputable firms for a long time in the market to hide contraband goods, counterfeit brands, goods of unknown origin, poor quality takes place very seriously.

The HCM City Information Management Force has regularly checked and discovered many smuggled goods transported on domestic flights and transported in containers on the railway routes from north to south in large quantities, entrusted by goods owners for transportation businesses. When it was discovered, most of the goods were unclaimed.

In addition, trading and transportation of smuggled cigarettes from Tay Ninh and Long An provinces to HCM City and other provinces for consumption are still taking place. Subjects often use cars of 4-16 seats to gather in border areas for transportation inland in large quantities. During transportation, to avoid detection, the subjects frequently changed license plates and the time of transportation. In the domestic market, smuggled cigarettes are gathered and dispersed, hidden in many places for small and small transportation.

In 2020, the Department of Information Management of HCM City checked nearly 3,900 cases, decreased by nearly 50% compared to the same year last year, processed more than 2,700 cases, the amount of fines collected and paid to the State budget was nearly 59 billion VND.

Among the violations, there were many cases of businesses renting storage of counterfeit goods in large quantities. Typically, the HCM City police collaborated with the Department of Information Management of HCM City to inspect Duong Tu warehouse at Le Ha parking lot (Tan Hung ward, District 12, HCMC), and discovered nearly 3,000 liquid milk products under the Ensure brand, nearly 2,500 illegal imported beer products. Expanding investigation and inspection at a nearby location owned by Tran Quang Thien, the working group also discovered nearly 9,400 products of Ensure and more than 3,000 smuggled beer products. The value of goods is over 1 billion VND.

In particular, team 6 of the HCM City Market Management Department checked the warehouses located in the campus of 5 Ho Ngoc Lam Street, District 8, HCM City hired by Do Tu Anh to store goods, discovered nearly 52 tonnes, only unknown origin; over 38 tons of yarn produced by China without invoices and 200 tonnes of synthetic fibres without sub-labels in Vietnamese, worth more than VND 3.8 billion. Fined nearly 200 million, confiscated all violated goods.

Previously, in August 2020, the Department of Information Management of HCM City checked the warehouse address 12, Phu Dinh Street, District 8, HCM City, and discovered nearly 8,000 cosmetic items, perfumes, soaps, household goods and food like five spices duck feet and yogurt tablets. All of the above goods had no invoices and vouchers, worth about 800 million VND.

Continuing to check the warehouse's premises, the authorities discovered nearly 5,000 more children's toys, cosmetics, household electrical appliances, phone components and 80,000 people. The page originated from China, without invoices and documents with a total value of more than 2 billion VND.

According to Mr. Truong Van Ba, Director of the Department of Information Management of HCM City, during the period before, during and after the Lunar New Year in 2021, the city intelligence management force continued to drastically implement the Peak Plan against smuggling, production and business counterfeiting, trade fraud to promptly prevent violations, especially smuggled goods from provinces to HCM City.