Coast Guard Region 1 (CGR1) is responsible for managing, maintaining and enforcing laws in the waters from Bac Luan river mouth (Quang Ninh province) to Con Co island (Quang Tri province), with thousands of coastal islands and many big and small seaports. This area is naturally favourable for trade and economic development, but also an ideal ground for illegal activities, smuggling and commercial fraud with large numbers of people and goods involved, such as: the smuggling of gasoline, DO oil, FO oil, tobacco, coal, ore, firecrackers, etc. The tricks used by the smugglers are very diverse, sophisticated and cunning.

Faced with the situation, in order to well fulfill the assigned functions and tasks, the CGR1 Party Committee and Command have thoroughly grasped and strictly implemented the resolutions and directives of the Party and the State on combating and fighting against smuggling and trade fraud, focusing on Resolution No. 41/NQ-CP, dated June 9, 2015 of the Government on stepping up the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods in the new situation; directives and plans of the Ministry of National Defence, the Coast Guard Command, the National Steering Committee for Prevention and Fight against smuggling, commercial fraud and counterfeit goods (Steering Committee 389) at all levels. Every year, the Regional Party Committee concretises this task into leadership resolutions, plans and action plans in which emphasis is placed on setting goals, guidelines, measures, targets, leadership requirements suitable to the characteristics, structure, and duties of each agency and unit; and thoroughly grasps and implements these resolutions and plans throughout the Region in a unified manner.  During implementation, the Region requires Party committees at all levels to direct and approve plans, special projects and struggle plans; assign specific tasks to each members in charge, while promoting the role of cadres at all levels in guiding, inspecting, supervising and urging, especially those performing important tasks and operating independently.

CGR1 apprehend HP-1702 boat carrying 20.000 litres of DO oil without receipt

Along with that, the region regularly grasps and well implements Directive No. 202/CT-BTL, dated January 16, 2017 of the Standing Committee of the Coast Guard's Party Committee on implementing the movement of "four good, four no, four against"; strengthens education to make officers and soldiers firmly grasp their characteristics and tasks, methods and tricks of the smugglers; absolutely not to let officers and soldiers to be bribed and abet crimes. Thereby, its troops have developed political courage, grasp and remain enthusiastic for their tasks, proactively overcome difficulties, stay vigilant and determined to fight without tolerance against all acts of smuggling, commercial fraud, and illegal transportation of goods at sea.

In order to improve the effectiveness of crime prevention and combat in general and smuggling and commercial fraud at sea in particular, CGR1 Party Committee and Command attaches special importance to the collection of information and documents on crimes and violations, which helps the task force grasp the activities of criminals in the seas under it management. They have focused on leading and directing agencies and units to synchronously and flexibly deploy professional measures in the fight with the motto: "taking the law as the foundation, and reconnaissance as the spearhead"; promoted the role of the reconnaissance force in firmly grasping the local situation, identifying the right objects as well as detecting the tricks and operation rules of the criminals to promptly advise the superiors and apply appropriate and effective measures and method for struggle; regularly maintained observation ship and crews; strengthened patrol, inspection and control forces; actively opened peak periods of fighting against smuggling and trade fraud, especially before, during and after the Lunar New Year occasion; directed the Professional and Legal Sector to effectively implement the breakthrough in "Strengthening innovation in information technology application, proactively seeking information source and improving news quality"; paid attention to training and fostering for troops to master and promote information technology equipment, especially new and modern ones in recce at sea for the confidentiality, timeliness and safety of information; effectively exploited the existing secret networks and develop a number of substitute ones to meet the requirements of immediate and long-term missions.

Recently, the situation of smuggling and trade fraud has become very complicated. Smugglers resort to all methods and tricks to deal with functional forces. Therefore, in order to create synergy and effectively fight this type of crime, the region focuses on implementing and coordinating well with relevant forces of the Ministry of Public Security, the Border Guard, and the Navy, and market control agencies of coastal provinces and cities to comprehensively implement coordination of activities, strengthen patrols, inspection and control on key routes and sea areas; coordinate training and retraining to improve professional capacity. At the same time, it actively holds seminars, experience exchanges, practice and exercises to handle complex criminal situations and fight against piracy; sets up a hotline, maintain the routine of situation briefing; reviews and summarise the actions done.

Along with the above contents and solutions, the Region attaches importance to information, propaganda and mobilisation of people to actively participate in the prevention and combat of smuggling and commercial fraud at sea; actively and closely cooperates with local Party committees, authorities, agencies, departments, mass organisations and press agencies of the localities in planning and effectively implementing the propagation, dissemination and education of laws and functions, tasks and operational results of the Vietnam Coast Guard in general, and Coast Guard Region 1 in particular; promotes cooperation with press agencies to write articles and report on smuggling cases at sea so that people, especially fishermen, better understand the serious harms and consequences caused by acts of smuggling and commercial fraud; pays attention to search and rescue activities; supports and protects fishermen in their offshore fishing; effectively implements the program "Coast Guards accompanying the fishermen", the contest "I love the country’s seas and islands", thereby, contributing to raising awareness and sense of law observance for people in the area, especially fishermen living and operating at sea, strengthening and consolidating the military-civilian solidarity, serving as a basis for building an all-people’s defence posture, a firm and widespread people's security posture at sea, and improving the effectiveness of the fight against smuggling, commercial fraud.

With a spirit of positiveness, initiative, overcoming difficulties, solidarity, synergies, strict adherence to law, Coast Guard Region 1 always raises vigilance, persists in sticking to the area, promptly detects and handles the situation, resolutely and effectively fights against smuggling and commercial fraud, contributing to ensuring security and safety in the waters under management. Since 2018 to date, the region has launched hundreds of turns of ships and boats to patrol, inspect, control and enforce law at sea; inspected and controlled nearly 2,000 turns of ships entering and leaving the assigned area; detected 1,595 violating ships and handled 86 cases with 100 ships of smuggling and commercial fraud. In addition, the region has also coordinated with functional agencies in the liquidation of the arrested assets, contributing to nearly 70 billion VND to the State Treasury.

In the face of complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic and trade war between major powers, which continue to impact and create drastic changes in many fields, especially the economic field, followed by more complicated smuggling and commercial fraud activities, in order to meet the requirements and tasks in the new situation, the CGR1 Party Committee and Command will continue to further strengthen the leadership and direction of the party committees, party organisations and commanders; promote the vanguard and exemplary role of cadres at all levels in the performance of tasks of the units; improve the quality of political education, ideological leadership to make soldiers strong in political zeal, highly vigilant, proactively overcome difficulties, ready to receive and complete all  assigned tasks. It agencies and units shall firmly grasp the local situation: crimes, law violations, new methods and tricks of smuggling and commercial frauds at sea; synchronously deploy professional measures, proactively and effectively launch peak struggles; regularly cooperate closely with the Border Guard, Police, Customs, ... to actively exchange information, promptly detect, apprehend, investigate, and strictly handle cases of smuggling and commercial fraud, contributing to the managing and maintaining political security, sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the sacred waters and islands of the Fatherland.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel NGUYEN VAN HIEN, Deputy Political Commissar of the Region