According to information from the Customs Department, recently the Northern Regional Anti-Smuggling Control Team under the Anti-Smuggling Investigation Sub-Department has coordinated with Huu Nghi Border Gate Customs under Sub-Department of Customs Region VI to inspect transit shipments suspected of customs declaration.
As a result of actual inspection of goods, customs forces discovered two cases with a total of nearly 15,000 cosmetic and fashion products showing signs of suspicion of intellectual property infringement.
In the first case, functional forces discovered 10,508 cosmetic products suspected of infringing intellectual property rights of Korean brands. Exhibits included 4,500 tubes of Jula's Herb Carrot Aging skin serum type 40g/tube; 608 bottles of Medicube skin whitening serum; 200 tubes of Eucerin facial cleanser type 150g; 4,000 bottles of L'Oreal foundation with a capacity of 30ml.
Customs forces also discovered 1,200 fake leather crossbody bags with dimensions of 25x20x8cm labeled The North Face.
In the second case, customs authorities discovered 4,350 fashion products showing signs of intellectual property infringement, including 4,100 belts, 200 pairs of shoes and 50 bags suspected of counterfeiting famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Nike and Charles & Keith.
According to the Customs Department, the cases are currently being further verified by functional agencies to clarify signs of violations for strict handling according to regulations.
Regarding previous cases of intellectual property infringement, the Customs Department said that on February 2, 2026, during the process of carrying out import procedures for a batch of dried dates with whole branches and separate dried dates of Hat va Gia Vi Joint Stock Company, Saigon Port Border Gate Customs Area I under Sub-Department of Customs Region II discovered a batch of goods showing signs of infringement of the "Dates Sanwan" trademark.
This is a trademark protected in Vietnam according to the provisions of Article 77 of Decree 65/2023/ND-CP dated August 23, 2023 of the Government detailing a number of articles and measures to implement the Law on Intellectual Property on industrial property, protection of industrial property rights, rights to plant varieties and state management of intellectual property.
The value of violating exhibits was determined to be more than 2.2 billion VND. Saigon Port Border Gate Customs Area I made a record of violation and Sub-Department of Customs Area II transferred the entire file to Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to issue a decision to sanction administrative violations.
Accordingly, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee issued a decision to sanction administrative violations against this enterprise with a fine of 490 million VND, and at the same time applied an additional penalty form of suspending business operations for a period of 2 months and forcing the removal and destruction of violating elements.
According to statistics, in the first 4 months of 2026, the Customs force discovered and handled 23 violations related to intellectual property, of which 11 cases were recorded in January alone. Violating goods range from consumer goods, high-end fashion bearing Dior, Louis Vuitton, Adidas brands to electronic devices such as Apple, Seiko, along with food, industrial components and auto parts.
The main violators mainly use tricks of falsely declaring the legal status of goods; importing and transiting counterfeit trademarks, goods infringing industrial property rights; transporting counterfeit trademarks to deceive functional agencies.
Many cases have been administratively sanctioned with amounts up to hundreds of millions of VND. Notably, a case related to ball bearings discovered by Sub-Department of Customs Region II has been proposed for criminal prosecution according to regulations.
