Step up fight against counterfeit and smuggled goods in year-end months

Toward the end of the year, functional forces across Dong Nai province have launched a peak campaign to inspect goods circulating in the area, aiming to strictly manage product quality and protect consumers’ rights and health.

Market management force inspects food trading activities at a store in Tran Bien ward, Dong Nai province. Photo: Hai Quan

Strengthening coordination in inspection and handling of violations

The situation of smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods has remained potentially complex in recent times. In the context of rapid digital technology development, while offering many conveniences to consumers, it also carries growing risks of violations in the production and trading of goods, with increasingly sophisticated and unpredictable methods. Therefore, functional forces must strengthen market management, inspections, detection efforts, and the handling of violations.

Ngoc Thu, a resident of Trang Dai ward, Dong Nai province, shared that she frequently shops for cosmetics, fashion items, and household goods on e-commerce platforms. While the convenience is undeniable, it comes with increasingly sophisticated and hard-to-detect violations in online transactions, especially on sales channels via social media, such as unknowingly purchasing counterfeit items or imported goods without secondary labels. Particularly during peak year-end shopping seasons and the lead-up to Tet, the risk of buying substandard or unidentified-origin products rises significantly.

Efforts to prevent and combat smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods have been intensified by functional forces across the province, especially during the year-end peak period in preparation for the New Year and Lunar New Year 2026.

At a meeting of the provincial Steering Committee for Anti-Smuggling, Counterfeit Goods and Trade Fraud (Steering Committee 389/DP) held in mid-December 2025, Vu Ngoc Long, Provincial Party Committee member and Director of the Department of Industry and Trade, said that in the coming period, the department will continue to strengthen coordination with relevant departments, sectors, and units in combating smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods.

In particular, the market management force will handle reports from the public on violations related to smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods constructively and respectfully, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of inspections and market oversight. Members of the provincial Steering Committee 389/DP will continue to strengthen local monitoring efforts, maintain strict control over warehouses and storage facilities, and establish inter-sectoral task forces to improve inspection and enforcement efficiency. They will also proactively monitor and update market developments to prevent hoarding, stockpiling, shortages, or unreasonable price increases.

Colonel Lam Van Long, Deputy Director of the Provincial Public Security, emphasized that to proactively improve the effectiveness of efforts against smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods, members of the provincial Steering Committee 389/DP need to strengthen coordinated inspections and ensure rapid and comprehensive information sharing, implement synchronized measures for inspection and handling violations, and enhance the role of functional forces in the fight against smuggling, trade fraud, and counterfeit goods.

Launching a peak campaign against smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud

The provincial Steering Committee 389/DP has issued Plan No. 128/KH-BCD389 to launch a peak campaign against smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud before, during, and after the Lunar New Year of the Horse 2026. The campaign will run from December 19, 2025, to March 15, 2026. The overall objective of the plan is to develop and effectively implement focused operations by sector and area of management and responsibility. It calls for the proactive deployment of personnel, equipment, and measures to strengthen inspection and tight control across land borders, border gates, railway and river routes, trails and open crossings, goods gathering points near border areas, the domestic market, and cyberspace, to prevent and handle acts of smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud.

According to the 2025 report on anti-smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud efforts by the Head of the provincial Steering Committee 389/DP, in the first 11 months of 2025, functional forces in the province conducted inspections of more than 4,300 cases, resulting in the detection of approximately 3,800 violations. Total state budget revenue collected, including administrative fines, additional penalties, and recovered taxes, exceeded 1.1 trillion VND.

At the same time, the focus will be placed on prohibited goods (drugs, weapons, fireworks, e-cigarettes, endangered, precious and rare wildlife and plants, etc.); counterfeit goods (pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, food products, dietary supplements, cosmetics, and traditional medicine ingredients); substandard goods; goods infringing intellectual property rights; conditional import-export goods; high-tax goods; and essential commodities serving production, business, and consumption needs (petroleum products, minerals, gold, foreign currency, electronic goods, mobile phones, garments and high-end fashion items, beer, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, confectionery, livestock and poultry and related products, fruits, etc.), as well as other consumer goods.

Functional forces need to strengthen market inspection and control over essential goods and high-demand products serving production, business, and consumption during the year-end period and the Lunar New Year; closely monitor warehouses, storage and transshipment points, logistics service facilities, industrial parks, wholesale markets, and commercial centers; and at the same time supervise business activities on e-commerce platforms, social media sites, and sales via digital technology applications to promptly detect and strictly handle acts of trading, transporting, and storing banned goods, counterfeit goods, goods of unclear origin, and violations of intellectual property rights.

At a meeting with members of the provincial Steering Committee 389/DP in mid-December 2025, Nguyen Kim Long, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee and Head of the provincial Steering Committee 389/DP, emphasized that committee members must strengthen coordination in inspection, detection, and handling of violations related to smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud. Particular attention should be paid to inspections in the fields of e-commerce, chemicals, and food and cosmetic products.

At the same time, efforts must be intensified to inspect and strictly address violations related to illegal firecrackers and smuggled cigarettes, particularly in border areas. Relevant agencies are also encouraged to enhance their information and communication efforts to increase public awareness of anti-smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade fraud.

By Hai Quan – Translated by Dang Huyen, Minho