Massive ring selling smuggled goods via livestreaming in northern region busted

The raid was led by Tran Huu Linh, head of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance, in coordination with the Hanoi City police. The forces confiscated hundreds of thousands of products without a clear origin, mainly cosmetics, fashion items and household appliances that were offered for sale via livestreaming.

The first team directly led by Tran Huu Linh raided a large-scale warehouse owned by Tran Tien Quang. The owner reportedly imported the products from South Korea and Japan into Vietnam through the Haiphong port and gathered them in the northern province of Hung Yen, where the goods were divided into smaller groups to be transported to Hanoi for consumption.

Besides this, the products were mainly consumed via e-commerce platforms, especially via livestreaming on fanpages such as “Chego Shop – The Gioi hang Nhat”, “Chego hang Nhat EU” and were also traded via mobile apps including Zalo and Viber.

After inspecting the scene, the forces tallied 93,400 products, which were mainly cosmetics, food items, supplements and wine that were produced overseas. All of the goods had no invoices or legal certificates of origin at the time of inspection.

Concurrently, seven other teams of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance and the Hanoi police raided other warehouses and business facilities located in Hanoi.

At a warehouse located in Hanoi’s Long Bien District and owned by Bui Quyet Thang, the forces found that hundreds of products, mainly fashion items, cosmetics, food, supplements, medicines and essential consumer items were stacked in heaps.

Meanwhile, a large number of products had been packaged with the receivers’ names, addresses, phone numbers and the product name being printed on the label of the products. The forces then seized nearly 3,200 products including cosmetics and food items made overseas but with no invoices, worth some VND400 million.

At another warehouse named “Shop Thuy top” also owned by Bui Quyet Thang, the forces discovered 495 clothing products suspected to be counterfeits of famous global fashion brands such as Gucci, Chanel and LV worth VND60 million. These products were chiefly sold via livestreaming on Facebook pages with tens of thousands of followers.

The forces continued raiding a business facility owned by Vu Thi Thanh Mai in Long Bien District and found many imported canned milk products. Mai showed the forces many invoices and other documents pertaining to the products. However, after an inspection, the forces seized 4,130 cosmetics and food items having no invoices.

According to Le Viet Phuong from the Hanoi Department of Market Surveillance, this is one of the biggest interprovincial raids being directly led by the head of the Vietnam Directorate of Market Surveillance.

Overall, the forces seized some 40 tons of goods including 123,425 items showing signs of violations. They were working to tackle the case in line with prevailing regulations.