Remaining at sea for a long time to stop thesmuggling of millions of cigarette packs and applying both investigation operations to combat origin violations are the highlights showing the changes in both quality and quantity of the Customs sector in the fight against smuggling and commercial fraud in2020.

A ship of 1st Squadron escorted CHUNG CHING ship and exhibits to
the unit's jetty in Ha Long City, QuangNinh.

Unloading stones for drugs at midnight

One of the outstanding victories of the Customs industry in 2020 is on the battle against transnational drug crime.

The head of the anti-smuggling force, the director of the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Customs), Nguyen Hung Anh, has directly participated in directing the handlingof many projects, including transnational drug lines.

With Director Nguyen Hung Anh, a memorable case involving the handlingof a line to bring drugs from Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City and continuing to bring drugs to Korea by sea through camouflage in granite blocks in an export container (named specialized project A720P). The project lasted for about half a year, but in our story, Nguyen Hung Anh still recounts every detail as it just happened.

On the night of July 18 and the morning of July 19, 2020, at Cat Lai port (HCMC), after many meetings on the Specialist Committee, Nguyen Hung Anh and the leaders of the Police Department of Drug Investigation, leaders of the Department of Drug and Crime Prevention and Control (the High Command of the Border Guard) were present at the scene and instructed the functional forces to handlethe case.

Finding drugs in containers is not easy. Because the criminal directly commanded by Kim Soonsik was an officer with 25 years of service in the Korean police force, but he was fired due to disciplinary violations. Under the command of Kim Soonsik, the smugglers triedto hide drugs in the middle of a container filled with granite through the eyes of the screening vehicles of the competent forces.

With the spirit of resolute fighting, duringthe night, under the leadership of the forces in the Specialist Committee, officers and soldiers of the Customs, Police, Border Guard used their hands to searchall 28 tons of granite in the container to find the drugs.

In the results of a search of 10 marble bales, weighing about 28 tons, functional forces discovered and seized 40 packages of methamphetamine (about 40kg) hidden inside four stone bales and arrested a number of related suspects.

After the investigation and arrest of a number of suspectsand drugs at Cat Lai port, with a spirit of fierce fighting, removing the criminal line, even though it midnight, Director Nguyen Hung Anh and leaders of functional units continued to command raids and arrest smugglers hiding in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and some other localities.

At the end of the project, the competent forces arrested a total of 24 smugglers, seized 164kg of synthetic drugs and 19 heroin packages. This is one of the typical cases showing the effectiveness of the combat cooperation between the Customs forces, the police force and the Border Guards.

Some photos of violations related to CHUNG CHING ship in Project TL-320.

Sticking to the sea to seize millions of cigarette packs during Covid-19

Equally arduous compared to the fight against drug crimes is the successful implementation of specialist project TL-320 chaired by Squadron 1 (Department of Anti-Smuggling Investigation).

In recent years, the smuggling of cigarettes in the Northeast Sea has seen many complicated developments. Especially in the first months of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic started, the risk of smugglers taking advantage of the situation to commit crimes increases.

Facing this situation, on February 18, 2020, the director of the Anti-Smuggling and Investigation Department signed a decision to establish a specialized project and a specialized team TL-320 chaired by the 1st Squadron, at the same time deploying units to coordinate implementation of specialized projects.

After the TL-320 projectwas established, the leaders of the 1st Squadron deployed synchronous operational plans.

In the first days of the year, the Northeast Sea witnessed strong monsoons, big waves down the bow of the ship, while meals are left unfinished because many people wereseasick. But the staff in charge of customs control are still persistently sticking to the sea to track smugglers. After many days at sea, Squad 1 discovered signs of smuggling.

When the smugglers on the CHUNG CHING ship were trying to move cigarettes to high-speed boats, many attacked officers. Detecting Vietnam Customs, the captain of the CHUNG CHING ship tried to flee. Despite the signal by the Customs forces, the smugglers did not obey, forcing the officers and soldiers on the patrol boat to open fire as a warning, Dang Tuan Anh (Squad 1) said.

With practical experience at sea and remaining determined to arrest smugglers, the forces of 1st Squadron safely approached and stoppedthe CHING CHING ship, PALAU nationality.On board, there were 22 crew members with exhibits of violation of more than 3 million cigarette packs (about one million bags have been passed to another ship), this is the biggest cigarette bustever made by the Customs force.

Drastically fight origin fraud

When Vietnam signs and participates in many Free Trade Agreements, besides the great benefits of attracting investment, increasing the scale of import and export, there are also many risks of fraud, including fraud of origin. The fight against origin fraud is even more difficult when the provisions of domestic law are incomplete.

In that context, the Customs sector, especially the Post-Customs Clearance Inspection Department, has drastically implemented many solutions.

"There are cases that, in order to fight and prove the violations of the enterprise, the Post-Customs Clearance Inspection Force must apply both operations related to investigation in accordance with the law," Director of the Department of Architectural heritage Nguyen TienLoc said.

As a result, by 2020, the whole industry has examined more than 100 enterprises. Detecting 43 cases of violation of origin of export goods; coordinated with the Ministry of Public Security to investigate a case with signs of counterfeiting origin certificate.

Confiscation of 3,590 complete bicycles, more than 4,000 bicycle parts and more than 12,000 sets of accessories to assemble kitchen cabinets are exhibits of violation; budget revenue and remittance of more than VND77 billion.

More importantly, the results of the aforementioned struggle have shown deterrence and prevention against origin fraud and demonstrated the determination of the Government, the Ministry of Finance and the General Department of Customs in the fight against fraudfrom goods importing enterprises taking advantage of tax preferences between Vietnam and countries and territories such as the US and EU. Changing perceptions of businesses, especially businesses that have foreign direct investment (FDI) requires a real, methodical investment to ensure that the goods produced are originating in Vietnam and have long-term business in Vietnam.