|
Smuggling at its peak
Though the traditional lunar New Year festival (Tet) is more than a month away, cross-border smuggling is always in full swing in northern border provinces. Stocks of contraband goods are held in secret places in Lang Son City before being transported to other provinces across the country.
“Come here quickly and you can get plenty of information for your stories,” a friend of ours who works for an anti-smuggling team in Lang Son City told us by phone.
Arriving in Lang Son City, we feel how quick the tempo of life is at this time of the year. Hundreds of motorcycles and coaches are seen loaded with piles of goods running fast on the way from border areas to Lang Son City or Dong Dang town.
Huge profit
At Khua Da area, which is considered one of the “smuggling centres” in Lang Son, we watch six women load boxes of cosmetics onto three motorcycles.
“When Tet approaches, my three children and I stop working in the rice field and come here to work as porters. On average, we earn between VND250,000-300,000 a day – a relatively big amount for us,” says a woman named Thien.
“How often are you captured?” we ask.
“Very often, but better luck next time,” says a woman named Tien sitting nearby. “If everything goes well, we will receive wages. Otherwise, we will have to compensate for the seized goods. So we often send out a person to go reconnoitring first and mark the place where border guard or police forces are stationed.”
After a while, the six women say goodbye and disappear quickly on a trodden lane winding around the mountains.
Nguyen Van Suu, a tea vendor sitting on the roadside, joins our conversation.
“They are all porters hired to work for smuggling rings,” says Mr Suu.
“Who are the ring leaders?” we ask.
“God knows. They never show up, even when the ring is uncovered,” says the man.
According to Mr Suu, most household utensils in Lang Son are illegally imported goods, ranging from clothes and shoes to beer.
Tough fight
Nguyen Huu Tri, head of the Office of the Lang Son provincial Customs Department, says that combating contraband goods is like “pressing the balloon”. He explains that leaders of smuggling rings use every means imaginable to bring goods into Vietnam. They offer high wages to lure hundreds of women and children to work especially at the end of the year when the purchasing power reaches its peak. Smuggled goods are loaded onto passenger coaches or even long vehicles to Hanoi and further to the south. In addition to firecrackers, sex toys which are sold publicly in Tan Thanh and Dong Kinh markets in Lang Son are also transported to Hanoi and neighbouring provinces secretly.
Since the middle of this year, anti-smuggling agencies in Lang Son have established many checkpoints and deployed forces on duty at hot spots. The provincial Customs Department has also increased inspections along roads and lanes and tightened the collection of VAT and the special consumption tax in the hope of reducing the number of hired workers.
However, a customs officer at the Huu Nghi (Friendship) border gate, complains about a lack of related forces that affects the fight against smuggling.
“We cannot order vehicle drivers to stop for a check, because it is the duty of traffic police who do not always work with us all the time. We sometimes find out that the vehicle carries contraband goods, but we do nothing,” he confides. “For porters, we only seize their goods, because the smugglers never show up. That is why the fight is always in vicious circle.”
Hoang Van Son, deputy head of the Lang Son provincial Market Management Agency, says that smugglers use sophisticated tactics to cope with State management agencies. They use cordless radio sets to give distance warnings and hire porters to carry the goods through crisscrossed lanes to avoid onlookers.
According to Mr Son, the province has launched many anti-smuggling campaigns, encouraged local people not to support smugglers and helped porters change their jobs. However, smuggling often picks up by the year’s end.
Since the beginning of this year, the provincial Market Management Group has discovered more than 560 smuggling cases and levied fines of more than VND7.4 billion in total.
Manh Hung - Thai Binh
vov
|
