TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese man was arrested in Hanoi on Monday for concealing nearly 2 kilograms of gold, worth over US$215,000 (NT$6.24 million), inside camera lenses to evade customs inspection.
At 10 a.m., customs officers at the A1 security checkpoint of Noi Bai International Airport screened the baggage of a passenger identified as C.P.H., who had arrived on Vietnam Airlines Flight VN579 from Taiwan, according to Vietnamnet. Officers noticed anomalies in four camera lenses inside the man’s luggage and alerted the airport’s anti-smuggling team and police.
Upon disassembling the lenses, authorities discovered 12 metal bars suspected to be pure gold, weighing a total of 1.994 kg. The bars had been “meticulously shaped” and hidden within the lenses to bypass X-ray and manual inspection.
Authorities described the case as “one of the most sophisticated gold smuggling attempts of the year.” The suspect and the seized gold were handed over to the Economic Police Division of the Hanoi Police Department for further investigation and legal proceedings.
Vietnamnet noted that in response to increasingly complex smuggling schemes—including brand counterfeiting, origin fraud, and abuse of import-export and transit procedures to evade taxes—Vietnamese customs authorities are stepping up inspections and enforcement at international border checkpoints.
