Police no dummies in bus mannequin smuggling case

Police in Quang Tri Province have seized thousands of spirits and cigarettes after noticing that the passengers on the bus were mannequins.

Police in Quang Tri Province have seized thousands of spirits and cigarettes after noticing that the passengers on the bus were mannequins.

  

Mannequins dressed up as passengers

At around 12.45 pm on December 13, the police pulled a passenger bus over while it was going through Huong Nghiep Commune, Dakrong District. They discovered that the bus only had one 32-year-old driver, his assistant and and three other people who own the goods. The driver dressed up the mannequins and popped them up on the seats hoping they would pass off as other passengers.

The driver and the three people couldn't provide papers for the goods that included 1,093 bottles of spirits, 1,632 cans of beer and nearly 1,800 packets of cigarettes. The goods were estimated to worth VND500m (USD22,000).

 

Thousands of spirits and cigarettes seized

They later admitted to the police that they were smuggling goods to Hai Phong City to sell at Tet Holiday.

The police said this was the first time they had encountered such trick.

"It's very reckless to use such trick to transport such huge amount of smuggled goods over a long distance," said Major Nguyen Thanh Tuan, deputy head of the police force in Quang Tri.