Police and border guards in northern Quang Ninh province have detected and seized about 10 tons of poor-quality live chicken smuggled from China.

The seizure was made in Quang Duc commune, Hai Ha District, near the Bac Phong Sinh border gate on Thursday morning, when a joint inspection team stopped three trucks carrying live chickens for examination and discovered that they were transporting the poultry without related documents.

The three truck drivers told police that they had been hired by Chinese traders to transport the poor-quality chicken to Vietnam for sale.

Police have detained the three drivers and seized the smuggled chicken for investigation.

A similar seizure took place in northern Bac Giang province last year, on August 11, when local police caught a truck carrying 1,800 live chickens from China without documents.

The  owner, Dinh Xuan Ty, a 36-year-old man from Quang Ninh, told police that he had bought the illicit chicken in an area along the Vietnam-China border and intended to ship the chickens to Hai Duong, another northern province, for sale.

Ty admitted to police that all of the chickens had been smuggled from China.

Chicken and many other commodities are often smuggled from China into Vietnam, which has seven northern provinces – Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Lao Cai, Ha Giang, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Quang Ninh – that touch China along a 1,350 km land border.