On October 11, the Customs Enforcement Team under the HCM City Customs Department said that they had completed the inspection of the imported blood cockle shipment of Vietseatrust Food Import-Export Trading Comapny Limited, discovered more than two tonnes and 80 boxes of smuggled goods without customs declaration.

Customs authority inspects the smuggled shipment of blood cockles 

Among them, there are over 500kg of dried seahorse; 240kg of dried abalone; 100kg of dried snouted pipefish; 120kg of dried gills (suspected of being Manta ray gill rakers); 3.5kg of shredded bird’s nest; 8kg of dried fish balls; nearly 170kg of animal bones, horns, claws and fangs (suspected of being from wild animals); and nearly 90kg of cut wood (suspected of being lagarwood).

In addition, there are 800kg of frozen squid, packed in 80 carton packs; 40 boxes of auto parts, two-wheeled motorcycles; 40 boxes of movable property including clothes, household appliances and candies.

All of the above goods have been made a certified record and were sealed by the customs authority; samples were taken for inspection of eight items in accordance with the regulations.

As reported by Customs News, on the basis of information analysis and determination of key points, the Risk Management Department (General Department of Vietnam Customs) has made a list of inspection through scanning machines for the above container. The results showed that the goods were not identical, showing signs of incompatibility with the contents of the manifest.

According to the information on the cargo manifest, the shipment contained 1,069 packages of frozen blood cockles, HS code 030743 (in fact, the goods with HS code 030743 are cuttlefish, frozen squid).

Therefore, based on the information on screening images provided by the Risk Management Department, on September 29, 2021, the online survelliance division of the General Department of Vietnam Customs directed the Saigon Port area 1 Customs Branch to stop taking goods through the monitoring area in order to conduct a physical inspection of this suspicious shipment.

Following the direction of the online survelliance division of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, on October 6 and 7, 2021, the Customs Enforcement Team and Saigon Port Area 1 Customs Branch (HCM City Customs Department) coordinated to conduct a physical inspection for the entire shipment of Vietseatrust Food Import-Export Trading Company Limited under the direct supervision of the online survelliance division of the General Department of Vietnam Customs.

The results of physical inspection of goods showed many contraband goods were detected as mentioned above.