Exposing the insidious "tricks" of Chinese traders

What should Vietnamese farmers do to avoid falling into the "vicious cycle" of buying and selling "nonsense" goods from Chinese traders?

Only buy "unique" goods, choose remote places

This is considered the first golden rule of Chinese traders when approaching Vietnamese farmers.

For pure farmers, living in the most remote areas, year-round with their fields and fields to make a living, perhaps "unique goods" is still a rather vague concept, and not many people even pay much attention to it.

Just know that the offers to buy some "heaven and earth" things like: cat whiskers, mouse tails, young mangoes, lychee leaves, leeches, golden apple snails, dragon fruit buds... have unintentionally become too attractive to many people, including those in areas with better living conditions.

Because, for daily life, especially in remote places, those strange things do not have much value, if not to say "only ghosts would buy them".

Therefore, the explanation of this concept by Chinese traders is extremely simple: the agricultural products they buy must be as strange as possible, people do not know the actual price to be able to compare.

Furthermore, choosing remote areas is also a "smart" thing for Chinese traders.

Because of the remote geographical location, limited infrastructure, especially low average education level, while access to market information is difficult, and management is weak, they will be more likely to "take action" in buying and selling transactions.

Pay in advance, "sky-high" prices for "throwaway things"

The "unique" pricing tricks of Chinese traders towards Vietnamese farmers is an old story but always surprises many people.

Because these unique goods are not often traded on the market, Chinese traders naturally have the right to set prices, and in many deals the prices are especially attractive to the people.

The story of a time in Binh Phuoc where there was a group of traders buying young cashew leaves at the same price (or even higher) than the price of raw cashew nuts in Binh Phuoc is an example.

Or the story of buying leeches at high prices in Nghe An in 2012 and in Hanoi in 2013 really caused many surprises.

Accordingly, around mid-2012, with rumors that someone was buying leeches for medicine, paying a very high price of 180 - 200 thousand VND/kg, people in Que Phong district (Nghe An) rushed to the fields to hunt leeches to sell for money.

Even according to information reported by the electronic newspaper VnExpress, at that time, in some communes of Que Phong district, leeches had really created a "fever" in both employment and price.

Just hanging around the swamps, every day you can earn from 50 to 80 thousand dong, earning more money and less hard work than carrying wood or digging cassava in the forest, that was the feeling of many farmers in Que Phong district at that time.

The leech story became even more ironic when it happened right in the capital Hanoi in July 2013.

Accordingly, many workers from other provinces (mostly from Vinh Phuc) have flooded the flooded fields in Co Nhue commune (Tu Liem, Hanoi) to catch leeches and sell them at a bargain price to the Chinese.

Chinese traders have directly appeared to buy leeches at "sky-high" prices of about 800,000 - 1 million VND/kg.

Even dozens of Vietnamese traders quickly invested capital to buy leeches to sell to Chinese people for a profit.

More seriously, due to the leech fever spreading for many days, there have been "ideas" to abandon fields (rice, vegetables, etc.) to raise leeches.

Then, the situation of 2011 in Tay Ninh, Hoc Mon (HCMC) repeated, the leech buyers suddenly disappeared, leech farms, leech ponds... sprang up again, causing terror to the people living there.

The "vicious" cycle of sales

Many people have been interested in the scandals of Chinese traders, including victims of the trade who have taken the trouble to find out the route of these "heaven and earth" goods.

The result made many people disappointed, because when asking at the border gates of Tan Thanh, Mong Cai, Thanh Thuy, Ha Khau..., most people said they had never seen such goods exported across the border.

And the question “What do they buy for? Why buy without exporting to China?...” still becomes a hot topic in every village, alley, and even in large and small forums organized by many competent agencies.

The following sharing from a person who has "taken the trouble" to directly learn about Chinese traders has revealed the path that the writer temporarily calls the "vicious circle" of the transactions.

According to the description of "insiders", their operations usually involve a group of at least 2 traders, the target is remote rural areas, the agricultural products they buy must be as strange as possible...

The "project" on buying young cashew leaves in Binh Phuoc, Vietnam is a story being discussed by traders in Guangxi (China).

They decided to choose Binh Phuoc, where there are many cashew trees (cashews), young cashew leaves are the item they decided to buy because it is a unique product, with no precedent for sale, easily creating "legendary curiosity".

The first thing is to find a local trader and negotiate to buy young cashew leaves at the same price as raw cashew nuts.

"Deposit money in advance, large quantity, need to get it right away", that was the move to dispel all initial doubts of farmers who were already half-believing, half-doubting. Immediately after the story, families, upper and lower villages rushed to pick cashew leaves to dry in preparation for delivery.

At the same time, other traders came to neighboring areas to make similar offers: "pre-pay, large quantity, need to get it right away."

But, there is another point that in this area they will double the price compared to the original, so the rumor spread among the people, in just a few days, the scale of the transaction was no longer limited to the village and commune level but had spread to the whole district and even the whole province.

After a few days, the traders implemented phase 2, still meeting the old "brokers" of Vietnam, but this time it was the story of "very scarce goods, popular in China, prices increased 5-10 times".

Continuing the refrain, paying in advance, large quantity but they did not forget to add a "forced immediate delivery" clause.

Many people have been miserable with their dream of changing their lives due to leech fever.

The opportunity to get rich was obvious, and the brokers quickly took action, but the problem was that there were no more goods to buy, and no more people to sell. Suddenly, rumors spread in the neighborhood and outside the village that someone had a large quantity available and wanted to sell, at a price lower than the price sold to the Chinese.

The “brokers” and even the people competed to spend their own money to buy goods from this “mysterious character”. The initial results made hundreds of people excited to make a profit, and the mysterious warehouse owner also sold all his goods.

Immediately, the purchase price was pushed up many times by the traders, quickly collecting to import immediately, especially "this time the quantity must be at least several thousand tons". People were again eager to buy goods from other warehouses at "exorbitant" prices as long as there was a difference compared to the Chinese price.

However, in the end, the smuggled goods sold from those warehouses were actually the goods of one trader in a group of two people operating in Vietnam.

The first few times they paid in advance to maintain their reputation, normally the suspicion was gone, the traders no longer needed to pay in advance, the people with "business blood" quietly invested their capital to buy goods, waiting to change their lives.

Therefore, hundreds of people unintentionally spent hundreds of millions, even billions of dong to buy goods to sell, putting themselves on the verge of bankruptcy.

Following the whole process, according to Chinese traders' estimates, when it was time to "close" the deal, they decided to increase the price by about 50 - 100 times compared to the first asking price, "buy it now and get it tomorrow".

The hard-working and diligent farmers thought it was time to "change their lives", so within just 1-2 days, thousands of tons of goods were collected, with an excited atmosphere waiting to receive billions of dong.

However, Chinese traders suddenly disappeared after taking all the "belt-tightening" capital of thousands of people, many even gritted their teeth and borrowed money at high interest rates to buy goods.

Scattered around searching, only to find similar situations of dozens of brokers, people no longer have any cashew trees waiting to pick fruit, falling into the situation of "cannot destroy, cannot leave".

“Dark faces and hot tears. Cashew leaf warehouses piled up like mountains because everyone is trying to stock up. Cashew gardens are barren, deserted, and immense... It turns out that buying those rubbish agricultural products is just a way to raise prices. Buying and selling in circles pushes up prices, makes a lot of money, and the ones who end up holding onto them are the poor traders.”

Over the past years, there have been dozens of such cases occurring all over Vietnam, but the strange thing is that the management agencies have only "heard of" or "are investigating".

But the results are still… “not out” and people continue to fall into a “half-crying, half-laughing” situation with the “life-changing” opportunities created by Chinese traders.

According to Kinhtenongthon