Officers of Huu Nghi Customs Branch inspect imports. Photo: Thanh Liem.

Lang Son Customs Department has requested border gate customs branches to strictly control the origin and label of goods, and protect intellectual property rights.

Many violations

During the customs control process, Huu Nghi Border Gate Customs Branch detected suspicious signs of a shipment completing customs procedures by An Huy Trading & Import-Export Co., Ltd. The branch conducted a physical inspection and detected that the shipment showed signs of infringing intellectual property rights.

The shipment contained 6,000 sets of fake Adidas sportswear; 300 sets of fake Nike sportswear; 300 sets of fake Puma sportswear, 900 pairs of fake Nike sports shoes, 768 bottles of fake BLEU DE CHANEL, CHANCE CHANEL perfume, and 3,600 pairs of fake DIOR sandals.

The local Customs branch took samples and sent them to the Industrial property representative for goods verification. The result showed that all the products were fake goods. Therefore, on April 4, the branch made a record of administrative violations against the company for transiting goods with forged trademarks.

On April 12, the Chairman of the People's Committee of Lang Son province issued a Decision on administrative violations in industrial property 28/QD-XPHC for An Huy company for transiting counterfeit goods worth VND122 million, imposed a fine of VND205 million and enforced to destroy these fake goods.

Recently, the local Customs Department reported and proposed to the Chairman of the People's Committee of Lang Son province to issue a decision to impose administrative violations related to industrial property for Thuan Thanh Import-Export One Member Limited Liability Company for importing goods infringing trademark and fined VND312 million, removed infringing elements for 228 TOPTEN, BLUMGOLD iron cabinet hinges.

According to the assessment of Lang Son Customs Department, many smugglers have taken advantage of e-commerce activities, online shopping via social networks and express delivery service and parcels to ship banned goods across the border. The trade fraud in import and export activities is more complicated and unpredictable. Violations are increasingly diversified and sophisticated such as mixing fake goods, low quality or fake origin goods.

The abuse of the e-customs process, goods classified in Green and Yellow channels (exempt from physical inspection) to make false declarations of goods' names, quantities, category, codes, and origin still regularly occur.

In addition, many businesses take advantage of the regime of transportation of goods subject to customs control such as goods in transit, imported goods transferred to border gates, transshipped goods, and goods in the form of express delivery to commit fraud, especially intellectual property violations.

Strengthening customs control

Currently, the Chinese side has taken many measures to closely control the Covid-19 pandemic and import and export activities, leading to obstacles in trade in the area and increasing development of trade fraud with sophisticated methods which cause difficulties in inspecting and handling problems by competent agencies.

Meanwhile, from now to the end of the year, the pandemic will be controlled, so import and export activities will gradually resume. Smugglers have increased the transportation of smuggled goods, fake goods and goods of fraudulent origin into the domestic market.

Therefore, Lang Son Customs Department said that is strict management measures are not implemented, violations will occur, especially for transit goods.

In fact, some enterprises have abused the openness of the e-customs system to falsely declare the name, quantity, category, and code of goods to smuggle, commit trade fraud, and illegal transportation of goods across border gates.

Deputy Director of Lang Son Customs Department Vy Cong Tuong said that the department has requested local customs branches at border gates to closely inspect and control the origin and label of goods, protect intellectual property rights, and collect information of businesses, especially enterprises related to the violations.

The department has required branches to strengthen customs inspection at checkpoints, warehouses, and expedite online supervision to effectively prevent smuggling and trade fraud in customs declaration, strictly control import and exports to detect offenses in a timely fashion, preventing revenue loss.

The Customs branches have been required to coordinate with competent agencies in the area to collect information and supervise border crossings and border gates to prevent and arrest violators and instruct residents to comply with regulations related to smuggling and illegal transportation across border gates.