A crackdown on smugglers has created turmoil at Vietnam-China border crossings, notably at Mong Cai Border Gate in Quang Ninh Province, which is being flooded with people going back and forth between the two countries as gangs probe for weak spots in border control.
Officials said Mong Cai Border Gate processed 10,000 people on December 6. The crowdness has been going on over the past month following the arrest of a smuggling gang on November 2, which prompted an increase of inspections by border gate security along the border.
People lined up at Mong Cai Border Gate on December 6.
Mong Cai has been reinforcing security and inspection of the imported goods to identify smugglers, with all adjacent road crossings blocked to force people through the main border gate.
Most of people going through Mong Cai Border Gate use "border citizen cards", which grant them them a duty-free allowance of VND2 million worth of goods a day. Any more than that attracts a customs tax of about 30 percent of the value of the goods.
The Department of Vietnam Customs said smugglers were using the border citizen card to manipulate the rules to bring goods into Vietnam.
Reports say it is also common practice for border crossers to wear multiple layers of clothing, which are handed off to brokers on the other side of the checkpoint, or pay commissions to others to break down and carry in large shipments of such items as handbags without arousing suspicion.
But tightened inspections at checkpoints has led smugglers to probe for weak spots, resulting in some crossings, such as Mong Cai, being inundated with cross-border traffic.
Authorities are considering limiting the duty-free allowance to one crossing a week.
