On March 19, the Anti-smuggling and Investigation Department (General Department of Customs) successfully broke the largest cigarette smuggling case at sea ever.
Implementing the TL320 specialized project, at 3:30 on March 19, at the coordinates 20019.838’N; 107029.884'E in the Tonkin Gulf, the Fleet 1 under the Anti-smuggling and Investigation Department discovered that Chung Chinh ship (Palau nationality) was illegally transferring cigarettes to high-speed canoes without a serial number for domestic consumption.
When discovering the anti-smuggling force, the high-speed canoes ran away and the captain of Chung Chinh ship immediately sped up to the Buoy No. 0 toward the area on the sea under China's control.
Although the chasing patrol boats showed stop signals, the smugglers still tried to run away, forcing officers and soldiers on the patrol boats to fire warning shots.
At the inspection time, the captain of Chung Chinh ship declared that the ship included 22 foreign crew members, carried about 8,549 bales, equivalent to 4,274 million cigarettes of all kinds, including 555, ESSI, YUXI, and DOUBLE./.
