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Unveiling the New Trends in the Smuggling of Foreign Waste: Selling or Deceiving Import Licenses
Release time:
04 May,2015
Since China Customs launched the "Green Fence" special operation targeting the smuggling of "foreign garbage" in 2013, relevant illegal and criminal activities have been curbed to a certain extent. However, due to the huge domestic demand and considerable price difference profits, the smuggling of "foreign garbage" has adopted more concealed methods and developed new smuggling routes. Customs and anti-smuggling personnel suggest that we should continuously strengthen domestic comprehensive governance and international cooperation, and take multiple measures to combat the smuggling of "foreign garbage".
Since China's customs authorities launched the "Green Fence" special operation against the smuggling of "foreign garbage" in 2013, relevant illegal and criminal activities have been curbed to a certain extent. However, due to the huge domestic demand and considerable price difference profits, the smuggling of "foreign garbage" has adopted more covert methods, developing new smuggling routes. Customs and anti-smuggling personnel suggest that we should continuously strengthen domestic comprehensive governance and international cooperation, and take multiple measures to combat the smuggling of "foreign garbage".
"Foreign garbage" smuggling: three covert methods:
According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs' Anti-Smuggling Bureau, in 2013 and 2014, a total of 312 cases of smuggling waste were investigated and handled nationwide, with 1.43 million tons of various solid wastes seized. Among them, 142 cases involved prohibited imports of solid waste "foreign garbage", with a total of 250,000 tons of electronic waste, waste slag, old clothes, and other "foreign garbage" seized.
According to the introduction, the "Green Fence" special operation has two key targets: First, to crack down on the smuggling of industrial waste such as waste slag, waste catalysts, waste tires, waste batteries, and electronic waste, as well as old clothes, construction waste, domestic garbage, medical waste, and hazardous waste, which are listed in the "Catalogue of Solid Wastes Prohibited from Import"; second, to crack down on the smuggling of imported solid waste that does not meet environmental control standards through non-customs areas and through customs areas using methods such as concealment, misdeclaration, and using other people's licenses, as well as smuggling by sea.
The effectiveness and deterrence of the "Green Fence" operation have been unanimously recognized by experts and scholars, legitimate solid waste operators, and even international industry associations. An analysis of the cases investigated in the "Green Fence" operation shows that the current smuggling of illegal solid waste and "foreign garbage" takes the following main forms:
——Falsification, reselling, or defrauding import licenses. When investigating cases, customs authorities found that under strict supervision, some enterprises that lack processing qualifications and capabilities import solid waste by defrauding or using other people's licenses. This is currently the main criminal method. In the past two years, customs authorities have investigated 196 such criminal cases, involving 1.1495 million tons of waste.
——Evading customs supervision through misdeclaration, underreporting, and concealment. Some enterprises misdeclare the name of the goods when declaring imports, misrepresenting waste prohibited from entering the country as other goods with similar appearance, and providing false documents to evade customs supervision; some conceal "foreign garbage" prohibited from import when declaring imported goods. In the past two years, customs authorities have investigated 78 such cases, involving 205,300 tons of waste.
——Directly smuggling "foreign garbage" by "bypassing customs". China has a long border line, making supervision difficult. Some criminals directly bypass customs areas and smuggle waste prohibited from import into the country. In the past two years, customs authorities have investigated 62 such cases, involving 54,000 tons of waste.
Smuggling routes become more circuitous, increasing the difficulty of supervision. A Bimonthly Talk reporter's investigation found that in recent years, due to increasingly strict customs supervision, the method of directly transporting entire containers of prohibited solid waste to the mainland is less common. Criminals are more likely to use concealment and transit to indirectly "bypass customs" to smuggle "foreign garbage", and their methods are becoming increasingly covert.
When concealing "foreign garbage" for entry, criminals often use goods with similar appearance and properties, such as concealing prohibited electronic waste in restricted waste metals, or concealing waste tire chips in waste plastics, making it objectively difficult for inspectors to distinguish and classify them. At the same time, some enterprises misrepresent prohibited waste slag as ore. Since both belong to the same attribute and only differ in mineral content, this poses higher requirements for on-site customs supervision.
When smuggling "foreign garbage" by bypassing customs areas, the entry points have shifted from south to north as China's crackdown intensifies, some even making long detours and crossing multiple customs areas. In a major case of electronic waste smuggling jointly investigated by the anti-smuggling bureaus of Guangzhou, Dalian, and Tianjin Customs, the smuggling gang first shipped the "foreign garbage" to a North Korean port through a Hong Kong freight agent. After the container was dismantled, it was transported to a public anchorage outside the Liaoning border by a cargo ship, then smuggled into the country through a non-customs area in Liaoning, and finally transported to Guangdong by sea or land. The smuggling route went through Hong Kong, North Korea's Nampo, Dandong in Liaoning, and Shantou in Guangdong.
Smuggling "foreign garbage" directly violates the Basel Convention, which aims to curb the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, especially the export and transfer of hazardous waste to developing countries. China has been a party to the Convention for more than 20 years. An expert from the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific told a Bimonthly Talk reporter that in addition to the traditional free trade port of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Vietnam has also become an important transit point for "foreign garbage" smuggling. The main reason is that the Vietnamese government grants exemptions for the import of some hazardous waste intended for re-export, and there are even cases of failure to fulfill, or even violation of, the Basel Convention. Moreover, the Vietnam-China border is long, with many loading points, and law enforcement agencies lack sufficient manpower, material resources, and technical prevention measures, making it difficult to completely block the flow of "foreign garbage" into China through Vietnam.
Strengthening comprehensive governance and enhancing international cooperation. Insiders suggest that to cut off the smuggling chain of "foreign garbage", it is necessary to increase the intensity of domestic comprehensive governance and strengthen international cooperation. The import of solid waste involves many aspects, including license management, enterprise management, actual supervision of the import process, and management of the subsequent processing of imported raw materials. Combating the smuggling of solid waste requires the cleanup and rectification of illegal distribution channels and trading markets, and requires the joint efforts of multiple departments such as environmental protection, inspection and quarantine, and customs, as well as local governments. Only by truly achieving joint management from the source, improving the supervision mechanism, can comprehensive governance be achieved.
Heads of anti-smuggling departments in many places suggest that customs should establish an inter-customs risk information exchange and notification mechanism to achieve the collection, release, and comprehensive handling of risk information, and to timely prevent and resolve supervisory risks. At the same time, a mechanism for liaison, cooperation, and information sharing should be established among customs, commerce, industry and commerce, environmental protection, and inspection and quarantine departments as soon as possible. The connection mechanism for the management of solid waste import and processing and utilization should be improved and perfected to avoid management disconnections or gaps, standardize and unify the law enforcement standards of various departments, make law enforcement results mutually recognized, and conduct joint special operations to combat and govern the smuggling of "foreign garbage" in a timely manner.
In addition, due to the huge differences in development among countries, many countries have not yet reached a consensus on controlling the transboundary movement of "foreign garbage". Some countries intentionally transfer hazardous waste across borders, while others have inadequate laws and regulations and lack awareness of the hazards of hazardous waste.
To this end, relevant customs officials and experts from the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific suggest that China should make full use of international conventions, international law enforcement cooperation, and overseas intelligence to gradually achieve the goal of blocking "foreign garbage" outside the country's borders. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen law enforcement cooperation with relevant Vietnamese departments to jointly combat smuggling and curb the smuggling situation on the China-Vietnam border; strengthen cooperation with Hong Kong Customs to jointly combat the smuggling of waste from Hong Kong to the mainland through "re-export" and "consolidation"; and jointly strengthen the analysis and research of basic data and information with major source countries of hazardous waste to provide references for law enforcement actions and policy making.
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