Teared into groups, secretly and miserablely stalking
The houses and factories we witnessed were filled with wind plants containing agarwood, with “thien la dia” hammocks and agarwood fine art” are expensive and parts of tigers, bears, monitor lizards, pythons, dried monkey hands…
They are evidence of “recruitment” tricks to bring in goods. Hundreds of people have successfully gone to other countries to find illegal forest products. What are the sophisticated tricks for them to get through the border gates?
We are present in Truc Ly village, commune. Vo Ninh, Quang Ninh district, Quang Binh province. Through the deserted village gate during the Covid-19 pandemic, the village road is littered with a few concrete mixers blocking the gutter embankment under construction.
The entrance to the house of the tycoons who led troops to search for agarwood across the country and then mass-purchase it was flooded to the top pedestrian pillow. Because of the traffic jam, a friend of mine who has been an official in Vo Ninh commune for many years had to invite him to a place he knew to “kill time”.
A large yard was filled with large and small logs of various kinds. Bright, sharp tools, some as small and long as chopsticks, others as big as a hand. The homeowner, Mr. Ph, enthusiastically said: “Soi agarwood is very tiring.”
They cut thin pieces of wood day after day to reach the fragrant brown-black layer of agarwood in the wild wind gourd tree. brought from across the border. “It has the sweat and blood of the incense burner, maybe even mine,” Mr. Ph said while burning fragrant incense.
In his house, there are countless “art paintings” made of wind. gourd with a faint fragrance and a noble dark brown color that Mr. Ph and the tour guide swore “is the essence, a treasure of heaven and earth, a sacred object for humans”.
< p>That’s why it’s expensive. He built a transparent glass cabinet to preserve logs containing agarwood up to 2 meters high, elaborately like a perforated and aesthetically crafted honeycomb. Agarwood is used to make Buddha statues, bracelets and necklaces into sophisticated and fragrant sculptures. “They are natural pieces of agarwood that have not been processed. They are quite light and 20 times more expensive than the “scanned” ones, so I have to keep them in a locked glass cabinet carefully,” Mr. Ph said.
Mr. Ph said: “After more than 40 years of working as agarwood, I still don’t understand it beyond the effect of making perfume.” Super expensive for medical purposes, is it really something to serve the space rocket technology? But I think that’s the only reason why it’s so expensive it’s all about money billion like that. And it’s so expensive that people will go to any cost to get it.”
And the story of Mr. Ph. back to the hardships along the sacred forests of poisonous water in Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, sometimes to China, and even along the forests along the Ganges River in distant India. To do that, they must use tricks to make fake passports to travel. Countries in ASEAN have passports that allow them to travel in their country for about 30 days.
After that time, they stay illegally and live in hiding, sleeping and working all night. Once you enter the forest, you can live quietly like a wild animal.
“Going downhill is like going to war, dying a lot, being shot a lot. I constantly go abroad like When I go to the market, their customs manager is also suspicious. They have regulations: when traveling, you must have at least 200 USD (about 4 to 5 million VND) in your pocket, otherwise you will not be allowed to enter the country Call the person (owner) to bring money so I can “clear customs”.
When it was too difficult, we went by road to enter Laos through the international land border gate to Thailand and then continue Going to Malaysia is a long and arduous 20-day journey. When you get there, you’ll have to rent a car and go to the forest.
Go slowly with your food and drinks Find agarwood. Set up a tent away from the road for a few days, stay there for a few days, then continue to set up a tent further away They appropriated that according to the law of the jungle” – Mr. Ph gushed.
And robbery and murder also took place according to the law of the jungle. “Sometimes I think I’m too cruel,” Mr. Ph sighed.
Going abroad to find agarwood is a miserable experience. At home, lie and travel. When arriving at the airport, they were suspected of sneaking into separate groups of agarwood workers to wait for someone to pick them up. When it comes to gathering places, they sneak around like cats at night, and during the day, they huddle together tightly, sometimes going to the roofs of cheap hotels to lie discreetly.
When they go out to eat, drink or shop, they secretly snoop. Documents must be hidden carefully to avoid being caught and confiscated. When entering the forest, only those without passports hide it. So when you are arrested and sent to prison, your country’s authorities have a hard time sending documents to diplomatic representative agencies for verification.
Mr. H.V.C. describes escaping from bandits for 2-3 months in the forest but accidentally meeting the forest protection agency and sometimes being able to “negotiate” with a decent amount of “lubrication” money through an interpreter. Arrested and deported to Vietnam then moved on. If traveling by air is difficult, traveling by road can sometimes go around several countries to reach the country you and your crew need to go to.
Agarwood workers must train themselves to be “tough” in endurance. No matter how hard you are hungry or thirsty, you can survive. Sometimes they trap wild animals and can’t eat them all. They’re tired and don’t even go to check the traps for dead animals that rot throughout the forest. Sometimes a tree falls and kills someone, sometimes a snake bites a bear, slaps the agarwood friend to the hospital, takes their body back to the country, and then moves on.
The secret to bringing hundreds of agarwood workers abroad “digging” digging and digging”
Mr. N.V. V. house in Gia Ninh commune, Quang Ninh district, Quang Binh province led me into a majestic mansion. Filled with carved “towers” made of wood containing agarwood. The house smells fragrant. Mr. V. wears a huge tiger tooth around his neck. He started the story right when he was burning agarwood to “treat the smell” to his customers:
“If you buy my agarwood, don’t worry. When I was not married in 1985, I worked as agarwood. At first, I only cooked rice and boiled water as an apprentice with my uncles. When I brought a group of 300 soldiers (agarwood harvesters) to Malaysia, I went to prison there.
In the beginning, when we came to work, it was very profitable because the people there did not know anything about agarwood, they did and If you sell it to me, the price is also very cheap. Now they are much “smarter” and Vietnamese people come to work in large numbers of agarwood and forest products are also starting to become scarce. I took a break especially because of the Covid-19 epidemic” – the homeowner began to tell.
“Each time it was necessary to expand the exploitation area to different countries. We always have relatives to scout first. They must be enthusiastically instructed on how to discover “agarwood” and walk into the forest to get paid. They usually get married in that country and live for a long time and understand the area.
After spending months in the forest, they are caught, some places they can run, some places they can’t run, they have to go to prison. Someone was shot dead by them.
I went abroad for 6 years in a row. Sometimes it takes a few hundred people. Sometimes tons of agarwood (wood containing agarwood) are brought back by air. Transporting by ship is very slow. In general, this product is controlled quite methodically.
But we still have all the doors. Sometimes I even ask for a license to bring agarwood that people have grown for microbial culture back to the country. But in reality, in name only, I wear natural agarwood” – Mr. N.V.V said.
In agarwood warehouses with logs up to 4 meters long, tons of goods can easily be left out of many items related to tigers. The bear brought back Mr. V. revealed.
“There are people who are careful to go through customs and delete photos related to tigers, bears and illegal goods on their phones because they are afraid that if they check, “I’m in this bush,” Mr. Ha Van C. expressed his intelligence. more cunning and trendy.
Mr. V. sat amidst wealth and lamented: “This job requires many tricks and is very painful. I figured out that out of every 200 people looking for agarwood, only more than 10 people would earn a few dollars back. The rest is nothing.
Some people were imprisoned for 14 months, some people spent money to “run” through the bait for every 50 million VND to have their crime reduced a little. I myself was arrested in China and sent to prison for selling agarwood. I sent the item through the post office and they tracked it. So, fortunately, in Laos, “bandits” often shoot and kill people who work as agarwood to rob.”
With all the tricks to escape crime, they sneak around in the jungle to “outwit” the authorities. function to smuggle prohibited goods back to their hometowns, except for those who were shot dead or imprisoned abroad. Some of the fishermen and their bosses have very spectacularly earned a living.
An officer As a leader of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Quang Binh province for many years, he said: the unit often receives documents requesting to verify personal information about forest workers who have been arrested, imprisoned, deported (or unfortunately seriously injured and left for dead). network) from other countries. Transcending the jungle to “pick wormwood to find agarwood” is a profession that has existed for many years in many villages in the area.
We witnessed it with our own eyes. Ants with tiger skin and bear arms, body parts inseparable from the life of rare wild animals are smuggled to the agarwood villages to search for forest and land products across the country. The agarwood giants are all “bosses”. They sent troops abroad and then collected and sold the products.
They built tall houses with wide doors, hired dozens of workers to “scan” agarwood in the yard and garden and then crafted fine art products for worship. Spiritual offerings are sold on social networks to famous fairs nationwide. The traders sit in the shade and eat a bowl of gold: they do not go into the forest, nor are they shot down or imprisoned abroad.
Settling down in one’s homeland – an enlightenment Timely
A bowl of rice placed next to a bowl of blood from the forest brings tears to the eyes, a tragedy for the heavy-duty laborers living like Robin in the miasma of blue mountains this past year. just another year.
Cooled coffins with dead bodies of dead men; The numbing remains of the ashes were sent home amid the groans of many relatives; Massacres like the 5 agarwood farmers at the Vietnam-Laos border not long ago… – all have awakened many people.
Going to the forest to go to the sea to destroy the mountains and forests, stab the gangsters in search of “mountain trenches”. “sea food” like sucking on wormwood to find agarwood, trap a tiger and kill a bear, as this series describes, is not only so hard that it ruins many lives.
Moreover, the illegal activities of transnational animal trapping and agarwood rings have become a scandalous issue, and the foreign press has sporadically mentioned these crimes many times. The above crime was committed by Vietnamese people, more or less affecting the good image of our country in the eyes of friends.
The above mentioned destruction of values that need to be preserved by humanity goes against the arguments humanity that we and progressive humanity are aiming for.
The people’s feelings coincide with the revelations of commune officials and provincial officials when interviewing us that: recently, life Developing supporting jobs in the locality helps them have a much more stable life.
Prices have dropped severely due to the Covid-19 epidemic raging around the world and travel restriction policies have caused many difficulties. It is difficult for people in neighboring countries to see the value of agarwood, so they also participate in searching and competing.
From those problems with the mobilization of local authorities and many families, He gave up his job of traveling thousands of lonely miles away, lurking in foreign lands, facing guns and No. 8 handcuffs and horrifying robberies from bandits to “settle down” in his hometown.
Mr. Nguyen Duy Tien Chairman of Vo Commune People’s Committee Ninh district, Quang Ninh district, Quang Binh province:
The Department of Foreign Affairs sent a list of unfortunate violators (arrested and sentenced to prison, including those who died) abroad to the commune. I am very obsessed with two cases: Mr. Pham Van S. Hamlet 1, Truc Ly, born in 1967, died in Malaysia; then Mr. Doan Van T. (born 1972) in hamlet 3 Truc Ly; Two people died while looking for agarwood. They all had their ashes brought back. There were quite a few injured people; Some people brought rare animal meat and dried monkey hands back to the village. To avoid being discovered illegally mining agarwood in Laos, they hide well. During the day, when you find a tree with agarwood, you mark it until dark or dawn before sneaking in to work.
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