Smuggling of agricultural products: a lot of tricks for pattern renovation

In the early hours of the morning, Tang, 30, was arrested by customs anti-smuggling police at his home in Tan San Village, Naliang Town, Fangchenggang City, Guangxi, on the border between China and Vietnam. He is suspected of smuggling Vietnamese rice into the country from non-customs places by way of "guaranteed goods".

While in Dalian, a coastal city in the north, when customs officers went down to the factory for inspection, they found that during the production process, an enterprise used domestic cotton materials to replace part of the imported cotton bonded materials, and after turning the remaining imported cotton bonded materials into finished products, they made profits on domestic sales without customs permission, with an initial estimated value of more than 100 million yuan and suspected tax evasion of more than 3000 million yuan.

Cotton, rice and other important agricultural products have been subject to quota management for a long time. Due to the large price difference at home and abroad, agricultural products have become high-risk smuggled commodities and are "favored" by smugglers. Since the beginning of this year, the Customs has launched an one-year special campaign to crack down on the smuggling of agricultural products. In order to evade customs supervision, smugglers have refurbished and resorted to crooked tactics frequently.

Open a private passage to smuggle into the country

The river in front of us is not so clear, there are several small boats on the bank, there are some sundries floating on the river, and on the other side of the river, you can see someone busily unloading goods from the container truck on the humble dock.

Soldiers in reflective vests and camouflage uniforms of "Guangxi Public Security and Frontier Defense" and police officers in helmets and walkie-talkies are on duty here, and under the tree by the river stands No. 1371 China Boundary Stone-obviously, this is no ordinary river. This is the border river between China and Vietnam, the famous Beilun River in Dongxing, Guangxi.

"the river here is narrow, the water is only about 10 meters at low tide, and the water is shallow. Coupled with the intricate mountain roads and many forks on the shore, these 'natural advantages' have brought great convenience to smuggling. Sometimes they build a ladder on the shore, unload one or two boxes of goods from the ship, and the motorcycle pulls and runs for only a few minutes. " At the Dafuanbu joint law enforcement station by the river, the anti-smuggling police on duty here told the Economic Information Daily.

In the early hours of the morning, 30-year-old Tang was arrested at his home by customs anti-smuggling police on suspicion of smuggling Vietnamese rice into the country from non-customs places by way of "guaranteed goods." When the upper reaches of the Beilun River was dry, some sections of the river were only a few tens of centimeters deep. In order to facilitate smuggling, Tang and other smugglers simply put cement prefabricated boards on the riverbed and organized trucks to smuggle Vietnamese rice into the country, which were then transported to Fangcheng, Qinzhou and other places for hoarding.

Guangxi and Vietnam are connected by mountains and rivers, forming natural barriers one after another. in recent years, due to differences in rice prices at home and abroad, smugglers, driven by interests, ignore the law and make use of these natural barriers by means of private passageways, private ferries, day and night, and so on, to smuggle smuggled goods into the country for profit.

"in July and August this year, we repeatedly arrested trucks carrying smuggled rice in Fangcheng, Dongxing and other places, and the rice was packed in the same package." Zeng Wenning, deputy director of the Anti-smuggling Branch of Dongxing Customs, felt that this situation was unusual. "through questioning truck drivers, we learned that someone was organizing the smuggling of Vietnamese rice from non-customs places into the country."

"the smuggling site was hidden in a village away from the road, and the smugglers used the fence of a timber mill to block the entrance to the passageway." An investigator from the Anti-smuggling Bureau of Dongxing Customs said, "Tang so-and-so smuggled rice to Dongxing City or Fangchenggang City by way of 'guaranteed goods'. He earned 270 to 410 yuan per ton, but if he was caught by law enforcement, he had to pay a compensation of about 3000 yuan per ton." As the "cost" of being caught is very high, in order to prevent him from being caught, Tang hired someone to "watch the water" on key sections of the road, and as long as there is a "suspicious situation", he will immediately tip off.

It is understood that in order to illegally reap huge profits, after ordering rice in Vietnam, smuggling gangs first smuggled rice into the country through non-customs areas along the Sino-Vietnamese border in Naliang Town, Fangcheng District, Fangchenggang City, Guangxi, and then transported it to warehouses near Fangcheng District, Fangchenggang City, Guangxi, and in the urban area of Qinzhou City, to hoard and change packaging and specifications, and then shipped it to Nanning City and other places in Guangxi by truck for sale.

"the Beilun River is 60 kilometers long, the navigable distance is 18.5 kilometers, and the distance is long and narrow, so it is difficult to supervise. In recent years, smugglers often use a small number of ants to move, first pulling them to the houses with scooters, then loading them into minivans, and then concentrating at the next point. " Liao Kefu, deputy director of the Nanning Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau and director of the Dongxing Customs Anti-smuggling Branch, said, "this is the characteristic of the crime of smuggling in non-customs places. On the surface, it appears to be scattered and sporadic cross-border smuggling. In fact, it is often carried out in an organized and premeditated manner under the planning and control of professional smuggling gangs."

Since the beginning of this year, Nanning Customs has cracked four major rice smuggling cases in Nanning, Dongxing, Chongzuo, and other cities in Guangxi, and eliminated 10 criminal gangs suspected of smuggling rice at one stroke, involving a total of 48700 tons of rice. the total value of the case is about 290 million yuan, suspected of evading taxes of about 121 million yuan, and arrested 38 main suspects of the gang involved in the case.

The courtyard of Dongxing Customs Jinfeng warehouse is full of impounded vehicles. A reporter from the "Economic Information Daily" saw that the interior of these cars with the same appearance had been changed beyond recognition. Most of them removed the back seat and connected it to the trunk to expand the volume, the chassis steel plate was modified to carry more weight, and stuck with a thick film, even a bright flashlight could not be shone into the car. The anti-smuggling police officer pointed to a minivan and said that it could carry more than one ton more than it used to be. He showed the reporter a handful of triangular tapered iron, which is called a tire burst, and smugglers are often sprinkled on the road to avoid being hunted.

True and false contracts play tricks.

In a recent case smashed by Shenzhen Customs on suspicion of understating the price of smuggling rice into the country, smugglers played tricks on true and fake contracts.

Suspect Yang set up Le company in 2002, specializing in rice domestic trade, began to engage in rice import and domestic sales business in 2006, and set up a processing plant. After determining the varieties of rice that need to be imported, Yang usually calls a number of foreign suppliers to make inquiries, and then asks the suppliers with lower quotations to send samples, or even fly to the suppliers in person to see the samples. make sure the rice quality is all right before signing the purchase contract.

However, when signing the contract, Yang will agree with overseas suppliers on the underquoted rice price, and the supplier will directly make a fake contract with the underquoted price, and the two sides will sign a real contract with a real quotation in private. The company will declare the imported rice to the customs with the quotation on the fake contract. After successfully entering the country, overseas suppliers will issue two kinds of invoices An and B to Le company. The payment of An invoice is the payment indicated on the false contract. Yang will arrange for someone to transfer it to the supplier through the normal payment channel. While the payment on B invoice is the difference between the fake contract and the real contract, Yang generally transfers it to the supplier through an underground bank.

The customs seized 30 containers with a total of 750 tons of imported Thai fragrant broken rice. Evidence shows that Le company used the above-mentioned smuggling method to smuggle this batch of 640 US dollars / ton Thai fragrant broken rice, falsely reported as 320 US dollars / ton of Thai white broken rice, and the price was as low as 50%.

In addition to understating prices and falsely declaring the names of products, smugglers also evade large amounts of taxes by illegally buying and selling "tariff quotas for agricultural products."

According to reports, at present, China implements the import tariff quota management policy for some key agricultural products, such as imported rice, and issues the "Agricultural products tariff quota Certificate" to grain enterprises or trading companies that meet certain application requirements, and imports according to the quantity and category of the certificate. In order to make high profits, smugglers import at a low tax rate by buying and selling and mixing the "tariff quota Certificate for Agricultural products".