Clarifying the tens of billions of rosewood suspected of fraud

Authorities in Ha Tinh are continuing to clarify a shipment of imported rosewood worth nearly 50 billion VND, suspected of fraudulent documents after being cleared by Lao Bao Customs (Quang Tri).

Notably, the latest appraisal result of the Criminal Police Department - Ha Tinh Police Department gave different results from the appraisal result previously conducted by Lao Bao Customs.

On December 7, the Provincial Police Department's Criminal Investigation Department inspected and temporarily detained a container with license plate 37C-076.14 carrying about 40 cubic meters of rosewood worth more than 40 billion VND, suspected of customs fraud.

According to information obtained by VietNamNet, the above wood belongs to S. Company Limited (Quynh Luu, Nghe An).

The shipment was imported from Laos and was inspected and cleared by Lao Bao Border Gate Customs Branch on December 6.

Mr. Le Van Toi, Director of Quang Tri Customs Department, said that this agency has worked and provided documents on the cleared shipment to Ha Tinh Investigation Agency.

“When the enterprise declared to do customs clearance, the above shipment was rosewood, not requiring a Cites license, but because the rosewood species is very complex, Customs could not identify exactly what type of rosewood it was, so they took samples for appraisal.

After receiving the results of the Lai test from Hanoi National University, Lao Bao Customs allowed customs clearance. Customs followed the correct procedures in this case" - Mr. Toi also affirmed.

However, according to VietNamNet's source, after the arrest, Ha Tinh authorities also took samples and sent them to the appraisal agency of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and the results showed that the wooden vehicle belonged to the species of rosewood.

"The cycad belongs to the rare group 2B and must have a Cites permit," a police officer told reporters.

Thus, up to now, the above shipment has had two appraisal results from two agencies. And the second appraisal result is consistent with the information that the police agency received before checking and keeping the above shipment.

A representative of the Ha Tinh Provincial Police said that, in response to inconsistent appraisal results, the Provincial Police held a meeting with relevant agencies such as the Provincial People's Procuracy and the Forest Protection Department and agreed to consider a plan to request a re-appraisal at a third appraisal unit.

"After the third independent assessment with all the components is completed, then we will have a basis to handle the above shipment according to regulations," said this leader.

Regarding the above conflicting appraisal results, Mr. Toi, Director of Quang Tri Customs Department continued to say: If the investigation agency determines that it is not a hybrid, the responsibility belongs to the appraisal agency.

"The Customs Department is not responsible for following the correct procedures. If the appraisal is wrong, the business may have colluded with the appraisal agency or due to poor appraisal skills," Mr. Toi affirmed.

“On the day the customs selected the sample for testing, there was a record of the sample collection and the sampling method. And there was a sample kept in case of suspicion,” Mr. Toi added.

Currently, the suspicions of collusion between Customs, enterprises and the first appraisal agency to get reasonable results for customs clearance are still waiting for the third appraisal request from Ha Tinh authorities.

According to vietnamnet