More than 100 tons of contraband and thousands of smuggled children’s toys and motorbike parts were seized, but the ringleaders behind the smuggling rackets escaped as police launched a large-scale anti-smuggling crackdown in a border city of the northern province of Quang Ninh early this month.
Officers of C46, the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security’s economic police unit, raided a number of areas where the illicit products were gathered in Mong Cai City, which borders China’s Dongxing City, and confiscated more than 100 tons of smuggled clothes, fabrics, and electronic products on November 2.
Most of the seized products belong to Luu Van Thang, 36, a big shot among smugglers in the northern border areas.
Thang has been smuggling products from China to Vietnam for the last decade, and has become extremely wealthy from the illegal business, according to officers.
The ringleader and his wife, however, managed to flee before police swooped on their warehouse, located near the Asean market in the city’s Hai Hoa Ward.
The 700-square-meter warehouse sits behind a wall of dense bushes and trees to keep members of the public away.
Thang has used sophisticated methods to avoid police detection and illicitly transport a huge quantity of goods to Vietnam by both road and sea, according to C46 police officers.
The goods are loaded on boats and barges on a daily basis from China, and as soon as the vessels reach Vietnam’s shores, the contraband is transported to Thang’s warehouse via motorbikes and cars.
“The smuggling is done at night to avoid detection,” a C46 officer said, adding that the peak for the work is from 3:00 am to 4:00 am.
“The smugglers also assign men to watch for police, and they will immediately flee when alarmed,” he said.
Also on November 2, police searched the house of Tran Van Lai, 52, and found 3,000 sets of clothes, more than 1,000 children’s toys, nearly 3,000 motorbike parts, and many other products.
Lai said the smuggled goods were pending transportation to other localities for sale.
Nguyen Canh Thang, an official of the city’s steering board on fighting smuggling, said the ringleaders are somehow informed in advance whenever his unit prepares a raid.
“So they are always able to hide,” Thang said.
The official added that his board will continue inspecting other warehouses and depots in Mong Cai City.
Authorities in the northern city have busted 550 smuggling cases so far this year, according to the steering board.
Officers have confiscated around VND17.3 billion ($814,271) worth of contraband, and seized around 56,000 Chinese yuan ($9,145).
They have also caught nearly 500kg of methamphetamine being transported from China to Vietnam via the Mong Cai border gate.
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