Customs officials take bribes to allow smuggling from China

Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday detained Truong Thi Le Hang, Nguyen Xuan Tung, Nguyen Thi Kim Anh and Nguyen Tien Dung, officials at the customs department of Binh Phuoc's Chon Thanh District, to probe into them for letting smugglers evade tax when importing polyester fiber from China.

Previously, police in HCMC tracked down a ring smuggling polyester fiber from China after finding that a company named Sunview Production and Trading Co., Ltd, registered in Binh Phuoc, had declared to import Chinese mono-pylamen polyurethan, which is not subjected to anti-dumping tax, into Vietnam.

As what showed on the paper, HCMC customs allowed Sunview to import the good into Vietnam via a port in the city.

As per the procedure, Sunview must transport the good to Binh Phuoc, where they would be inspected by Chon Thanh customs.

However, as police found out, Sunview had skipped that step and brought the good straight to its warehouse in District 8 for unloading.

When busting the warehouse, police found that all packages have had their customs seals removed, and the products imported were actually polyester fiber, which must be subjected to an anti-dumping tax of 17.45%.

Polyester fibers smuggled into Vietnam from China. Photo by police

Expanding the investigation, police arrested Bach Tan Cuong, 43, and Vo Thanh Tuan, 36.

Cuong and Tuan set up several "ghost" companies in Binh Phuoc, which existed only on paper and had no real operations or assets.

They said they had bribed customs officials in Binh Phuoc to skip the inspection step to import polyester fiber while declaring it mono-pylamen polyurethan.

So far this year, they had smuggled 258 containers of polyester into Vietnam. For each container, customs officials were given VND3.5 million (US$145).