Warning of a sophisticated trick to transfer foreign currency abroad

In a recent document sent to the Customs Departments of provinces and cities, the General Department of Customs said that through monitoring, managing, and reviewing the implementation of customs procedures, the General Department found that a number of enterprises showed signs of illegally transferring foreign currency abroad by means of falsely declaring the import of large-value software.

Previously, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department carried out a project to expose the tricks of some businesses declaring fake imports of valuable software.

Specifically, in December 2017, the Ho Chi Minh City Customs Department inspected two imported shipments through Cat Lai port and discovered that Nguyen Thao Informatics Trading and Service Company Limited (Nguyen Thao Company) and Phong Nhi Trading and Service Company Limited (Phong Nhi Company) imported 1,800 used computers; falsely declared software worth nearly 3.7 million USD.

During the inspection of the imported shipment, the customs force discovered 1,873 laptops, 51 hard drives, 21 CPUs, 2 iPads, all used, on the list of prohibited imports and not declared to customs. The falsely declared goods were of great value, including human resource management software and accounting software worth nearly 3.7 million USD.

Customs authorities said that businesses falsely declared imported goods of large value in order to illegally transfer foreign currency abroad.

According to the Customs authority, the noticeable characteristic is that software importing enterprises are only exporters in the role of trading companies, not software production companies, the product names are not clear, the software is declared generally (such as human resource management software, accounting software...).

In particular, the product does not have a specific software name, manufacturer, expiration date, copyright information, etc.

Warning about sophisticated tricks to transfer foreign currency abroad through software import

Enterprises with fraudulent behavior have declarations on their declaration forms that are very similar in both form and content, invoices, and packing lists are similar. The number of declared items compared to the weight of the shipment is unreasonable.

The General Department of Customs pointed out the following characteristics: Many criteria on the declaration form were incorrect, the signature of the director of a company on the customs declaration forms was different and inconsistent, there were signs of forged documents in the customs dossier... The actual imported goods were used goods, mainly laptops on the list of prohibited imports.

The General Department of Customs determined that the above-mentioned profiteering enterprises were established to take advantage of the software import policy through containers on customs declarations with very high software values ​​to transfer money abroad using the amount declared on the customs declarations that have been cleared.

In addition, businesses take advantage of software management policies to import prohibited goods such as used information technology equipment; there are signs of incorrect declaration of input and output value added tax (there are signs of buying and selling value added invoices).

The General Department of Customs has recently requested the Customs Departments of provinces and cities to strengthen inspection of imported shipments declared as high-value software.

The General Department of Customs has requested professional units to red-channel, check detailed records and check the actual software used for the above cases to clearly verify the level and violations and policy exploitation of the subjects.