As Tet (Lunar New Year) festival is nearing, like other Vietnamese localities, Da Nang has seen some cases of smuggled and counterfeit alcohol. This is amongst consumer items object to special consumption tax in line with the national regulations. Therefore, it is very necessary for the public to guard themselves against alcoholic products of unknown origin currently on sale in the local market during the pre-Tet period.

A total 600 bottles of foreign alcohol of unknown origin have been confiscated in Lien Chieu District.

The crackdown on counterfeit and smuggled wines has been tightened in recent times across the city.

On 14 January, concerned bodies detected and confiscated a total of 600 bottles of foreign alcohol of unknown origin in Lien Chieu District.

These products which were labelled with such popular brand names as Chivas Regal, Johnnie Walker Red Label, Captain Morgan Black and Royal Salute Gift, did not have any relevant documents and import stamps.

The seized items were sent to the municipal Market Management Bureau for quality testing.

In another violation case, a total of 300 bottles of wine on sale at a Son Tra District-located supermarket were seized by the local authorities as their traders failed to present any relevant documents for these products.

According relevant agencies, all the wine bottles have been identified as illegally imports.

According to recent survey, on current sale at stores, supermarkets and trade centres across the city are a large number of foreign and domestic alcoholic products with diversified designs and prices ranging from several hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of VND. However, many products have no tax stamps as required by national laws.

Under the current national regulations, foreign-made alcohol that is not correctly labelled with import stamps will be classified as counterfeit.

Mr Nguyen Dinh An, the Director of the municipal Taxation Department, each bottle of smuggled wine sold to the market may cause a tax loss of hundreds of thousands of VND to the State budget.

Given a high consumption of alcohol at Tet, the amount of tax loss is expected to be huge.
In shining a light on the manufacture and trade of fake alcohol, consumers began to question the quality of imported wines sold in the local market.

In reality, there were many tricks used to make counterfeit wines look like those from famous brands.

Violators could substitute poor-quality alcohol into a used bottle of wine to trick consumers, or fake the bottle, cork, labelling and even certification stamps to sell their products.

Of special note, it was very challenging for consumers to tell the difference between fake and real products at a glance and they could easily be cheated.

According to the municipal Market Management Bureau, in these days leading to Tet, heed is being still paid to increasing checks over the roadway transportation of consumer products, especially alcohol at all gateways to the city in an attempt to prevent trade frauds.