Continuously detecting sophisticated gold hiding behavior when entering the country
At around 9:00 a.m. on October 18, at the Arrival Hall - International Passenger Terminal T2 - Noi Bai International Airport, during the customs clearance process for passengers entering the country on flight UO550 from Hong Kong (China) to Noi Bai, the Import Baggage Procedures Team (Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch) discovered a foreign passenger with suspicious signs of hiding metal on his person.
Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch coordinated with the Police Department of Investigation of Crimes on Corruption, Economy, Smuggling, and Environment (Team 6) - Hanoi City Police and Noi Bai International Airport Police to inspect the luggage and goods of the above passengers.
According to the identification, the male passenger named C.H.P (foreign nationality) was on flight number UO550 from Hong Kong (China), departing at 7:40 (Hong Kong time, October 18) and arriving at Noi Bai International Airport at 8:33 the same day.
Through the inspection, luggage screening and metal scanning of the passenger entering the country, it was discovered that Mr. P was hiding metal on his person. Immediately, the working group invited the passenger into the inspection room for a physical inspection according to regulations. Here, Mr. C.H.P took out 7 pieces of yellow metal from his person.
Accordingly, 5 pieces of yellow metal were placed around the waistband of the pants, 1 piece of yellow metal was placed in the right shoe and 1 piece of yellow metal was placed in the left shoe. The total weight was about 7kg.
Working with the authorities, Mr. C.H.P confessed that on October 18, he came to Vietnam for tourism on flight UO550 and was hired by a Chinese person to transport the above mentioned metal to Vietnam for a fee of 100 Hong Kong dollars/piece, after which someone would contact him to receive it.
Previously, on October 4, during customs procedures for passengers entering the country on flight VN593 from Hong Kong (China) to Noi Bai International Airport, the Import Baggage Procedures Team (Customs Branch of Noi Bai International Airport) discovered a male passenger with suspicious signs.
Through inspection by the authorities, the foreign male passenger was found to be carrying 6 pieces of yellow metal, weighing about 3kg. The method by which the passenger concealed the metal suspected to be gold was very sophisticated. The metal bars were cut into small pieces and hidden on his person to avoid detection by the authorities.
On the morning of the same day (October 4), the Import Luggage Procedures Team (Customs Branch of Noi Bai International Airport) also discovered a tourist from Hong Kong (China) hiding 3 pieces of gold-colored metal in his private area and two shoe soles. This tourist confessed that the 3 pieces of gold-colored metal were 9999 gold.
"In the face of the current fluctuations in the gold market, implementing the direction of leaders at all levels, the Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch has focused on raising vigilance and preventing fraudulent behavior," said Phung Quang Minh, Deputy Manager of the Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch.
Do a good job of digital transformation
According to the leader of the Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch, to prevent and stop gold smuggling by air, in addition to arranging staff to strengthen inspection, control, and information filtering, the unit has increased the use of modern technical equipment, such as: scanners, smart cameras, metal detectors... to promptly detect.
Along with that, the unit strengthens propaganda and dissemination of laws... so that people are not taken advantage of to assist smugglers.
In particular, the Noi Bai International Airport Customs Branch has proactively built immigration information software to screen passenger information according to risk criteria and automatically monitor and warn subjects, thereby improving the effectiveness of customs inspection and supervision through information exploitation and analysis.
Through screening and exploitation of information on passengers entering and leaving the country, the customs agency has put hundreds of subjects on the automatic monitoring list during the implementation of the immigration information software.
It is known that on average, Noi Bai International Airport has about 100 international flights with 200-300 passengers per day. With conventional methods, it will take a long time to collect data and analyze the objects.
"Through the software, the work of screening, screening risks, identifying and zoning subjects is quick, accurate and especially reduces the time to look up travel history. This is the basis for the unit to carry out digital transformation, enhance the quality of customs inspection and supervision", the leader of the Customs Branch of Noi Bai International Airport informed.
According to statistics, after 6 months of piloting the software, the Import Luggage Procedures Team discovered 22 cases, including 7 outstanding violations such as marijuana, gold, and used phones.
