Customs officials in the southern An Giang province review the number of confiscated smuggled tobacco (Photo: VNA) An Giang (VNS/VNA)- Smuggling has long been a pressing issue in southern provinces that sharehundreds of kilometres of border with Cambodia and Thailand.
With many rivers, paddy fields and thousands of easily-crossed trails, AnGiang, Kien Giang and Dong Thap provinces are ripe for the illegal trade ofgoods between the two foreign countries and Vietnam, theonline dantri.com.vn reported.
“Goods smuggling and trade fraud happens most frequently in An Giang provinceduring the flood season,” Colonel Ly Ke Tung, deputy commander of An Giangborder guard was quoted as saying.
The province’s hotspots for smuggling are An Phu district’s Long Binh Town, TinhBien district’s Tinh Bien town, and Tan Chau town’s Vinh Xuong commune, hesaid.
Tobacco is the most common smuggled good from Thailand to the province. Some500,000 illegally traded packs of cigarettes were seized in the province in thefirst half of this year, a 10 percent increase compared to the same period oflast year.
Sugar smugglers use the Binh Di River between Vietnam and Cambodia in theprovince’s An Phu district to sneak sugar from Thailand to Vietnam, accordingto leaders of the customs office of the district’s Khanh Binh border gate. Some400 tonnes of Thai sugar were smuggled into the country during the first halfof this year.
Smuggled tobacco, sugar and cosmetics worth hundreds of millions of dong havebeen seized in Kien Giang province since the beginning of this year, accordingto customs officials of the province’s Ha Tien border gate.
Some 50 smuggling cases were discovered during the first half of this year inDong Thap province’s Hong Ngu district, from which packs of cigarette and threetonnes of Thailand sugar were confiscated, said customs officials of theprovince’s Cau Muong border station.
[Over 11,400 market frauds discovered in southern localities]
The smugglers’ tricks to slip under the authorities’ radar have become moreadvanced, according to customs officials.
Smuggled goods are gathered near the border and then divided into smallerpackages or placed together with legally traded goods, they said.
Smugglers take advantage of local residents’ unemployment, their skills withmotorboats and fishing vessels and their knowledge of local topography to hirethem to deliver smuggled goods.
Instead of keeping the illegally traded tobacco at their homes or in warehouseslike in the past, smugglers now hide them in vast areas and assign localsliving in the neighbourhoods to watch the goods.
These watchmen are told to abandon the goods and run if discovered, making itdifficult for authorities to seize them and the goods.-VNA
VNA
