Society
Flowers blooming on porcelain
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| HCM City Department of Customs’ officers being awarded for their work in smuggling investigations. Photo tuoitre.vn |
Viet Nam News
HCM CITY – The HCM City Border Guard Force’s Headquarters and the HCM City Department of Customs have worked together to uncover 48 cases and 104 people suspected of smuggling illegal goods via border lines, confiscating over VNĐ50 billion (US$2.2 million) worth of items since 2012.
This information was revealed at a preliminary conference held on Friday (August 11) to review the results of the five years co-operation between the two forces from 2012 – 2017, during which many organisations and individuals of the customs department received awards from the Border Guard Force for their contributions to the fight against smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeits at the city’s border areas.
Notably, they have discovered seven cases of smuggled elephant ivory (6 tonnes in total) from Africa, trafficking of 31.6 kg of cocaine from South America and a case of around 100 hunting rifles smuggled from Indonesia.
HCM City with 46 ports is one of the country’s crucial locations for the country’s trading activities nationwide. In particular it annually receives and delivers over 65 per cent of the total import/export goods so they have to face many challenges with trade fraud and smuggling.
Those two law enforcement agencies will continue to work together to tackle this issue, by organizing investigations, raids, training for officers and other activities.
Many ports have yet installed scanners, but rely on declaration through border and custom officials checking by themselves. On this occasion the City Border Guard Force has requested the installation of these devices. – VNS
