Free rein for Vietnam's smugglers
MOC BAI - It is no-man's land, but
everyone is looking for a slice of the
action.
Piles of goods are covered in plastic
sheets, people play bingo under
tarpaulins, porters with their
motorcycles and bicycles come and
go, and customs officers stand idle.
This is Moc Bai, a bustling smugglers
market between border posts
dividing Vietnam and Cambodia in
Tay Ninh province on the main route
from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom
Penh.
Each morning goods, mainly clothing
and counterfeit brands such as Fila,
Nike and Adidas, leave Vietnam
legally to enter Cambodia illegally,
while in the afternoon the flow is
reversed and cigarettes and alcohol
flood into Vietnam.
RAMPANT SMUGGLING, BUT NO ARRESTS
Captain Dang Van Ngot, head of the
anti-smuggling customs unit at the
Moc Bai border post, said big
smugglers remained underground
while porters were poor farmers
earning a pittance.
He has 29 customs officers to cover
32 km (20 miles) of national
boundary, but can also count on
assistance from border guards and
other units.
``The situation is rather complicated
in this area. The size and scope of
smuggling is not big but there are
many small cases,'' Ngot told
Reuters.
``The people involved in smuggling
are mainly farmers living in the area
and in between crops they come to
make money as porters for the big
smuggling gangs,'' he added.
He said small scale smugglers were
not ignored and that attempts were
made to control the problem.
Yet he admitted that over the past
year there had been no arrests for
smuggling-related crimes at Moc Bai.
Back at the smugglers market a new
load of fake sports goods has
arrived. A group of Khmer and
Vietnamese roll over the huge bales
of clothing and footwear, split them
open and pile packages onto
low-powered Honda motorbikes.
Fully laden, the porters splutter off
across fields, skirting the grandiose
Cambodian border post.
On either side of no-man's land, a
steady stream of bicycles moves in
each direction as people ferry goods
back and forth away from, but not
out of sight of, customs and border
guards from the two countries.
TIP OF THE ICEBERG
At Ho Chi Minh City People's
Court, 80 km (50 miles) to the
southeast, 74 people dressed in
black-and-white striped prison garb
appear in the country's biggest
smuggling trial.
Some defendants face execution by
firing squad in the Tan Truong Sanh
case, which has captured national
attention in a country where annual
per capita income is just $300.
In 18 months, investigators tracked
down the illegal import between
1994 and August 1997 of at least
903 containers stuffed with electronic
consumer goods, cars and other
luxury items worth more than $71.3
million.
The trial began on March 25 and is
expected to last five weeks.
Prosecutors allege the scale of the
smuggling operation was such as to
undermine the entire economy of
southern Vietnam. More worryingly,
over half those accused of
involvement were customs officers,
police or other state officials.
Sources close to the smuggling ring
say investigators failed to uncover the
full story, and that many others
remained free to ply their business
hand-in-hand with corrupt officials.
BLAME THE MARKET ECONOMY
Nguyen Minh Lap, deputy chief of
the Tay Ninh province anti-smuggling
steering committee, said the situation
on the border was unstable and that
controls and cooperation between
Cambodian and Vietnamese
authorities were lacking.
``Smugglers use motorbikes and high
speed boats, so therefore it is difficult
for Vietnamese anti-smuggling forces
to control the situation,'' he said.
Lap said that during the past year
10,000 smuggling cases had been
uncovered in Tay Ninh. Sales of
confiscated goods had contributed
16 billion dong ($1.15 million) to the
state budget.
Nationwide, 1,100 billion dong has
been recovered in the past year from
smuggling and trade fraud, he added.
``But the results show we can control
just 30 percent of total smuggling
activities throughout the country,''
Lap said.
Smuggling rings are becoming
increasingly sophisticated, but the
authorities are determined to defeat
them, he said.
``The multi-sector market economy
gave birth to smuggling and
smuggling became a companion for
the market economy so...we have to
use many economic and long-term
measures to succeed,'' he said, citing
a plan to develop an open economic
zone at Moc Bai.
But with state officials earning low
salaries, quick money will always be
attractive, Lap added.
``Wherever smuggling exists there
will be corruption. If we can get
good results in anti-smuggling it will
lead to a reduction in corruption, and
vice versa,'' he said.
``If we can significantly improve the
province's economy then we can
significantly reduce smuggling, but I
don't say we can stop it.''
Reuters - April 16, 1999.
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