Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam Cashew Association (VINACAS) Tran Huu Hau has just issued Notice No. 45/TB-HHĐ to cashew businesses, informing about the suspected fraud case in exporting cashew nuts to Dubai, UAE.
Export businesses in trouble
Accordingly, VINACAS received a call for help from Tin Mai Company (headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, specializing in exporting pepper, cashew nuts, coffee, etc.) with the following content: this enterprise signed a contract to sell cashew nuts to a company in the food industry headquartered at 1006, Mai Tower, Al Nahda, Dubai. Tel +971 43868859, +971586001304; Email: [email protected] via the e-commerce platform. Direct transaction person: Mr. Naeem Chaudhry, Mob/Whatsapp: +971 58 600 1304, email: [email protected].
After signing the contract, the customer advanced Tin Mai Company 15% of the order value. Tin Mai Company delivered the goods and on June 24, 2023, they arrived at Jebel Ali port, UAE. The goods were picked up and returned in empty containers on June 27, 2023, while Tin Mai Company has not yet been paid 85% of the value of the shipment.
Although Sacombank sent 2 telegrams (Swift) to the buyer's bank (temporarily unnamed) requesting payment and return of the documents, they were not implemented.
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| Vietnamese cashew businesses are always in the sights of many foreign scammers. (Source: Investment Newspaper) |
Upon inspection, the documents of the shipment were handed over by DHL (an international corporation in the logistics industry) to a security officer of the buyer's bank, but it is not known where the documents went afterwards. Meanwhile, the shipping company said that they will deliver the goods when they have all the required documents.
Speaking to the press, Mr. Bach Khanh Nhut, Vice President of VINACAS, said that this is a rare incident that occurred in the middle of the Dubai Financial Center.
Not only the cashew industry, according to the urgent warning at the same time, the Vietnam Pepper and Spice Association (VPSA) informed that at least 2 businesses in the pepper and spice industry are facing a similar situation.
Specifically, reports from companies in this industry said that transactions showed signs of fraud from the same buyer and the same bank in Dubai, leading to the loss of shipments of the companies at Jebel Ali port, UAE.
There is international collusion to defraud Vietnamese businesses.
VINACAS is cautious when considering that the case shows signs of fraud by the customer or the buyer's bank. Therefore, in order to support the related businesses, in addition to immediately contacting the Vietnam Trade Office in the UAE for support, VINACAS will coordinate with VPSA to organize meetings with businesses to fully grasp the information, from which to officially recommend the competent authorities of Vietnam and the UAE to consider and support businesses in resolving the case.
In its warning to its members, VPSA stated bluntly: The fraudulent transactions occurred at the buyer's bank where these businesses sent the collection documents, involving the bank's personnel and transaction procedures, with signs of fraudulent cooperation between the bank and the buyer. Therefore, the buyer was able to access the original documents of the shipment without having to pay, and at the same time cut off contact with the above businesses.
“This loss has the role and joint responsibility of the (foreign) bank with the buyer to organize and conspire to carry out fraudulent transactions of shipments of Vietnamese enterprises,” the VPSA document clearly stated.
Therefore, VPSA recommends that member businesses be extremely careful when transacting with Dubai customers in the UAE market.
The UAE is one of Vietnam's 10 largest export partners in the world and Vietnam's largest trading partner in the Middle East and Africa.
Been fooled many times, but…
This is not the first case of foreign subjects attempting to defraud Vietnamese agricultural export enterprises.
In April 2023, both VINACAS and VPSA simultaneously sent warnings to member businesses after the Vietnam Trade Office in Algeria issued a telegram warning of fraud when exporting to Algeria.
According to the Vietnam Trade Office, in August 2022, a Vietnamese company exported 5 containers of cashew nuts to Algeria through an intermediary company located in South Africa. The South African intermediary company deposited 10% of the value of the goods.
However, when the goods arrived at Mostaganem port (Algeria), the customer, Eurl ATS Food Company, could not complete customs clearance procedures because the company was included in the list of commercial fraud enterprises by the Algerian Ministry of Commerce from June 2022 (this list was not announced by Algeria).
The cargo owner is a Vietnamese enterprise and the shipping line has completed procedures to change the consignee to Eurl Azur Oran Company (Algeria) at the request of an intermediary in South Africa, but Algerian customs did not accept it on the grounds that this company lacked the legal capacity to carry out procedures such as importing, changing the consignee to a replacement enterprise or re-exporting the goods.
According to regulations, if goods remain at the port for 4.5 months after being unloaded from the ship without a qualified enterprise receiving the goods, Algerian customs will auction them to confiscate the goods. Fortunately, upon receiving information from Algerian customs, VINACAS asked the Vietnam Trade Office in Algeria to provide documents proving the legality of the goods owner and requested to cancel the auction to confiscate the goods. Thanks to that, Algerian customs canceled the auction and returned the goods to the Vietnamese enterprise.
Previously, also in 2022, VINACAS had to hold an urgent press conference to inform that, through the brokerage of Kim Hanh Viet Company Limited, 5 Vietnamese cashew nut exporting enterprises signed an export contract to Italy with a quantity of 100 containers of cashew nuts.
The goods were shipped but many problems were discovered. Some businesses that had packed goods but had not yet shipped urgently requested the bank to stop and revoke the documents to stop the shipping of the container. In the end, many businesses and banks still lost control of 36 containers of cashew nuts, worth more than 7 million USD, equivalent to 160 billion VND.
After that, for many months, with many coordinated efforts of Vietnamese authorities and the Vietnamese Trade Office in Italy, the ownership of the 36 containers mentioned above was returned to Vietnamese enterprises.
Not only the above cases, since 2020, the Vietnam Trade Office in the UAE has also warned when continuously receiving, detecting and handling many cases of Vietnamese enterprises receiving invitations to sell, buy goods, and sign commercial transaction contracts with signs of fraud and deception from a number of enterprises based in the UAE.
Similarly, since 2020, the Vietnam Trade Offices in the Netherlands, Nigeria, Algeria and Morocco have also regularly sent warnings about fraud in these markets.
After each time a scam like the one above broke out, a series of authorities and experts analyzed the tricks, issued warnings, and gave advice. However, Vietnamese businesses still get scammed.
Therefore, with the incident happening in the UAE market, experts say that the first and foremost condition to avoid falling into a situation like this is for Vietnamese businesses not to be "hasty" in signing contracts with unusual profits.
Note from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to import-export enterprises - You need to carefully check the partner's information, in the first transaction, you should try with a moderate contract value. In particular, pay attention and carefully check the reliability when there is an order asking for goods with a price that is too high, or too low compared to the market price. - Regularly maintain contact with Vietnamese representative agencies such as Trade Offices in the host country to verify the reliability of partners, especially businesses that do not have direct contact or search via the Internet. - Partners should be asked to use irrevocable L/Cs opened at reputable international banks, and at the same time, customers should be restricted from paying late. When partners open L/Cs, Vietnamese banks should be asked to check the authenticity of the L/C before delivering documents. - For D/P payment, Vietnamese enterprises need to provide deposit percentages to ensure the safety of orders (preferably 50% or more). It is not recommended to use D/A payment (documents accepted by collection), or transfer money via Western Union for payment. - Consider using banking services to increase debt collection through the service provider bank, as well as support businesses in finding and evaluating information about import partners and letter of credit issuers. |
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