On December 20, Vina T&T, one of Vietnam's largest fruit exporters, issued an urgent notice saying that the company's packaging plant code (VN-BTPH-036) had been fraudulently used and illegally exported durians to the Chinese market.

According to the person in charge of the company, unidentified individuals or organizations forged the Vina T&T Penang Branch (code: 0312904360-003) seal, together with the signature  of Vo Huu, Head of the branch, signed the export authorization contract number HD/UQTQMDG-036 with Eureka Marketing Limited on December 10, 2024. And a letter dated December 12, 2024, regarding the illegal authorization of the use of the packaging plant code.

Vina T&T stated that the export authorization contract was a forged document and that the company had never authorized any individual or entity to use its packaging plant code.

According to the false documents, Eureka Marketing entered into export authorization contracts with various other businesses, allowing them to package and export durians to China through Vietnamese border crossings using the code VN-BTPH-036. As a result, many fake Vina T&T fresh durians with package code VN-BTPH-036 are currently being sent to the Chinese market.

Nguyen Dinh Tung, general manager of Vina T&T, said the company has found that many people are illegally selling or providing packaging plant codes, and the company has sent documents to the relevant authorities to report and ask to prevent this from happening, but the situation has not improved.

Nguyen added that, surprisingly, the Ministry of Plant Protection and Customs were not aware of the anomaly and both approved the shipment. This shows that there are loopholes in the management of the planting area code and export records and seals, which can be used by criminals and profits.

A leader of the Vietnam Fruit Association said in an interview that he had received many reports of fake codes for exporting to China. This poses a huge risk to the industry, as units that buy export codes can export unregulated goods to China. If hazardous residues are detected to exceed the threshold, the goods will be returned and even the export code will be cancelled. The holding company of the code does not know this and is still exporting normally, then these goods may be intercepted by the Chinese side and returned.

The leader said that the increasing phenomenon of fraudulent codes is not only a problem faced by enterprises, but also a security issue for the entire Vietnamese fruit export industry to China. If it is not stopped in time, it will cause huge losses to the industry. At present, the association is gathering information to recommend to the Vietnamese government to close the loopholes in the code management of export fruit packaging plants.