VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Public Security's environmental police agency has uncovered a case of chicken smuggling in northern mountainous Son La Province perpetrated with the aid of a local animal health official.

Border guards at Chi Ma Border Guard Station in northern Lang Son Province seize smuggled poultry. The Government has ordered a crack-down on transporting and trading smuggled poultry which could pose a threat to public health.

According to the agency's deputy head Tran Trong Binh yesterday, Jan 9, the case was detected on December 29 when the police checked a car carrying more than 2,300 chickens in the province.

The car's driver, Nguyen Tai Kien, 23, showed an animal quarantine certificate permitting the poultry to be transported to other provinces. The certificate was granted on December 28, 2012 by the provincial Animal Health Department, allowing the transport of the chicken from Son La City to nearby Lai Chau Province before December 30, 2012.

The police were suspicious as the chickens looked like ones typically discarded from China – which are unsafe to eat - and did not match the description on the license.

They soon discovered that the certificate presented to them actually referred to a different cargo of chickens, and smugglers had knowingly acquired the fake license with no legal value from the head of the Son La animal health station, Ha Van Tiem.

The environmental agency handed the case to Son La Police for further investigation.

The Government has ordered a strict crack-down on transporting and trading smuggled poultry which could pose a threat to public health and affect local farmers' business.

Unhygienic food

Authorities in northern border-gate provinces have recently found that smugglers have been transporting live, unprocessed poultry in frozen ice-boxes, making it more difficult for supervisors to uncover violators.

In Lao Cai Province, it has been discovered that live low-quality chicken illegally transported from China are being fed at Vietnamese farms located along the Hong and Nam Thi rivers near the border.

Despite the well-publicised Government attempts to ensure food safety, concerns remain about unsanitary products. In addition to poultry, many people fear that pork being transported across the country's borders is unsafe.

The market watchdog team in Lao Cai has uncovered 200kg of broken sausages imported from China, and one Chinese-run workshop producing unhygienic sausage meat.

"Sausage illegally imported from China is made from dead pigs that smell bad," Hoang Chinh Phuong, deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Quarantine Sub-department in Lao Cai was quoted as saying in the Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.

"After transporting it into Viet Nam, the smell is hidden by chemicals and then the sausage is packed and sold to local residents. It's really harmful to health," he added.

Source: VNS