HCM City Customs inspect import and export goods to prevent smuggling. Photo: T.H

Smuggled and fake medicines increase

Many individuals have produced fake medicines in large quantities. Recently, the Market Surveillance Team No.3 under HCM Market Surveillance Department coordinated with HCM City Police and local police to inspect three medical establishments, where they seized over 5,000 products without invoices and documents.

The working team detected and seized 396 boxes of low-quality medicines without invoices and with Vietnamese sub-labels originating from Turkey, at the medical establishment at To Hien Thanh Street, Ward 13, District 10 owned by Mr. N.

The working team discovered 4,892 medical products and 13,750 boxes of foreign medicine without invoice, circulation registration numbers, import permit and labels at the medical establishment of Khanh Phuong Import-Export Production Trading Co., Ltd (100 Binh HCM City) led by Mr. L.

The infringing goods seized at these establishments is worth about VND400,000 million.

On June 9, HCM city Police busted a large-scale production and trading ring and arrested Pham Ngoc Bich Director of Amtex Pharma Pharmaceutical Joint Stock Company (address 279 A1, hamlet 1B, Phong Phu commune, Ben Luc district, Long An province), and Pham Bich Ngoc (brother of Pham Ngoc Bich) and five related suspects.

The Police discovered Doan Minh Truong and Pham Bich Ngoc had transported 12 boxes, containing 200,000 tablets, of Neo-Codion medicine from Long An to HCM city.

The Police seized about 1,000,000 fake medicine tablets at Thu Thua district, Long An province and many finished drugs in HCM City.

The competent authority discovered and seized about 1,000,000 counterfeit pills of finished products and dozens of machines, production lines, blister press machines for packaging of fake medicine.

The city’s police said that the production ring of fake medicine led by Pham Ngoc Bich was closely organized by many suspects who were related. These suspects used licensed medicine factories to produce and trade fake medicine in large quantities to outsmart the detection of the competent agencies. The discovery of these cases has prevented huge volume of fake medicines traded in the market and protected people’s health.

The raw materials for the production of fake medicines were discovered by the HCM City Police in June 2022. Photo: Provided by the police.

Transporting smuggled goods and fake goods from seaport to the inland

According to the Steering Committee 389 of HCM City, after the Covid-19 epidemic was brought under control, it has opened up opportunities for organizations and individuals to increase investment, develop production and business, but it is also a challenge when the smugglers used sophisticated tricks to outsmart the control by competent forces to produce and trade fake goods.

Recently, the trafficking and transportation of banned goods, smuggled goods, trade frauds, and fake goods from the border to inland areas and to the provinces for consumption. The smuggled goods mainly are cigarettes, sugar, milk, cosmetics, modern medicines, supplemental foods.

The competent forces as Market Surveillance, Customs and Police have detected and arrested many offenders with large quantity and value of goods. In May 2022, competent forces handled 220 cases of banned and smuggled goods, 1,214 cases of trade fraud, 29 cases of counterfeit goods with infringing goods worth more than VND167 billion, and criminally handled with 4 cases, with 6 suspects.

The forces has strengthened the area control to tackle violations and trading in smuggled, counterfeit, low-quality goods, and other offences, and strictly monitored essential commodities such as gasoline, food, medicine...

The HCM City Steering Committee 389 sets the goal of effectively implementing a plan on fighting against smuggling, commercial fraud and fake goods in 2022, and the thematic plan, including assigning specific tasks to each member unit.