Police in Da Nang City, central Vietnam on Monday pressed charges against Dao Cong Phu, a native of northern Thai Binh Province, for allegedly smuggling herbal medicine into Vietnam from China.
The city’s police agency on economic crimes said this is a serious smuggling case, in which the 36-year-old suspect adopted sophisticated practices and tricks, as well as exploited loopholes in customs clearance procedures to smuggle goods.
According to the investigation results, Phu established a shell business named Ngoc Son Company and hired several people to conduct customs procedures to smuggle traditional medicine from China to Vietnam.
The shell company made six customs declarations and imported a total number of 21 shipping containers of goods into Vietnam via the Da Nang Port Border Gate.
Sixteen of the containers had been cleared and transported to other locations for consumption.
As for the remaining five containers pending customs clearance, the customs officers discovered that these did not contain farm produce as earlier declared, but more than 100 metric tons of herbal medicines inside, worth nearly VND13 billion (US$552,500).
Police are expanding the probe into this smuggling case.
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