Cow smuggling to VN on the rise ... doesn't this help increase trade with VN?

Long An border guards with cows smuggled from Cambodia. Smuggling cows is on the rise as people seek to take advantage of higher cow prices in Vietnam.

Cambodian livestock smuggling - a daily affair in Long An

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Border guards in the Mekong Delta province of Long An have their hands full dealing with a rush of livestock smuggling from across the Cambodian border.

Long An border guards said they had seized more than 130 cows and buffalo being smuggled into the province from Cambodia since July.

Smugglers can sell the animals in Vietnam for double what they paid in Cambodia.

“Smugglers often hire people to take livestock across the border and they often flee after dropping off the animals,” said Le Hong Truong, an official from the provincial border guard.

Last Wednesday, Border Post 865 guards seized nine allegedly-smuggled buffalos in Duc Hue District’s My Quy Tay Commune.

But the suspected smugglers escaped.

Truong said some smugglers in Cambodia report their livestock missing and ask for them to be returned when confiscated by Vietnamese authorities.

On September 23, officials from Long An’s Border Post 893 seized 29 cows in Tan Hung District.

Sann Sa Ra from Kampong Trabaek District in Cambodia’s Prey Veng Province, then tried to reclaim 17 of the cows, saying they had accidentally followed some of his other cattle being sold legally to a local in Tan Hung District.

On September 18, guards at Border Post 885 seized 48 cows being smuggled by three people in Vinh Hung District.

The two arrestees, Tran Van Quang and Truong Van Cong from Vinh Hung’s Thai Binh Trung Commune, said they had been hired by Tran Van Chien to smuggle the animals for VND100,000 (US$6) per person.

A subsequent investigation revealed Chien had been hired to smuggle the cows by a Cambodian named Nguon Penh. Chien confessed to smuggling nearly 200 cows into Vietnam for Penh in a one-month period.

Border guards also found fake veterinary certifications of 49 cows being carried through Long An’s Binh Hiep Border Gate on July 8.

Investigators said the cows had been carried from Thailand into Cambodia before reaching Vietnam.

Cattle rustling may cripple Cambodian rice harvest say farmers

Jun 20, 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Rampant cattle rustling into neighbouring Vietnam may severely damage Cambodian farmers ability to plant and harvest their rice crops, local media reported Friday.

The English-language Mekong Times quoted a village chief, immigration officials and concerned villagers as saying that around 200 head of cattle cross the border in Svay Rieng province, 200 kilometres east of the capital, daily since roads were repaired.

The smuggling had caused the price of cattle to sky rocket from 300 to 1,000 dollars a head, the paper reported, putting the beasts that farmers use in their rice fields out of their price range.

'(Farmers) may face problems with the lack of cows needed for farm work, because most farmers in our country use cows for farming, not machines,' the paper quoted villager Sam Ra as saying.

It also quoted immigration official Rem Tha as saying border police were powerless to stop the illegal trade because 'most of the dealers are backed by high ranking officials.'

As in most Asian nations, rice is the staple of the Cambodian diet, and farmers are just beginning to plant the new monsoon crop.

Kouy Trabek village chief Sum Kahan said the cross-border trade also added to the risk of disease for local cattle as livestock from all over the country passed through his area.

The smuggling has also caused a more immediate food shortage problem, the paper reported, with the cost of beef almost doubling to 6 dollars a kilogram in a country where most of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.