On Friday afternoon they detected six people trying to sneak over the border with China in Yen Khoai Commune in Lang Son Province’s Loc Binh District.
They included two Vietnamese, Hoang Phuc Thanh and Phan Van Tuong, both 48.
As they were arrested, Thanh and Tuong, two locals both aged 48, who admitted they had been trying to smuggle four Chinese into Vietnam.
Tuong said he had been hired by a Chinese man, whose identity has yet to be established, and in turn had hired Thanh.
For this, the duo were to be paid VND10 million ($430).
The Chinese said they had planned to find jobs in the beach town of Nha Trang in central Vietnam, for years a magnet for Chinese tourists.
On Thursday evening, elsewhere in Lang Son, border guards, out of suspicion, checked a car in Dinh Lap District’s Bac Xa Commune and found two Vietnamese men traveling with five Chinese nationals.
Trinh Minh Trung, 28, and Nong Van Thanh, 30, are both residents of Dinh Lap.
Thanh said he was hired by a Chinese man, who too has yet to be identified, to smuggle the five Chinese into Vietnam and take them to Hanoi for VND70 million.
The Chinese said they had planned to continue on to Cambodia to work.
Between June and August, the latest month for which figures are available, public security officers and border guards found 21 cases of people smuggling involving 177 Chinese.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc instructed the Ministry of Public Security to crack down on the illegal entry of foreigners after a second wave of Covid-19 began on July 25 after a gap of 100 days.