Incheon Main Customs Office Uncovers 9 Companies Supplying Government Agencies with Misrepresented Vietnamese and Chinese Products

Products of foreign-made clothing falsely represented as domestic and fraudulently supplied to public institutions, detected by Incheon Main Customs.

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Incheon Main Customs announced on the 23rd that it has uncovered nine companies that fraudulently supplied foreign-made clothing as domestically produced to public institutions.

The companies caught through the 'Clothing Origin Label Washing Task Force' initiated by Incheon Main Customs since March last year removed origin labels from clothing imported from Vietnam, China, and other countries, falsely labeling them as Korean-made. They supplied a total of 1.58 million items of workwear worth approximately 67.8 billion KRW to 31 government, public institutions, and military units.

Incheon Main Customs explained that these fraudulent suppliers were booked for violating the Foreign Trade Act, transferred to the prosecution on January 22, and related information was reported to the Public Procurement Service.

The detected companies, despite lacking the capacity to produce the contracted supply volume themselves, signed procurement contracts requiring direct production and imported finished clothing produced in Vietnam and China. They then removed the origin labels attached to the products and repackaged them.

To avoid easy detection by investigative agencies when directly importing and supplying, they had a third domestic company responsible for overseas garment processing import the goods on their behalf.

During the crackdown, Incheon Main Customs also uncovered a label-switching operation by a company attempting to export 47,014 Chinese-made protective suits (worth approximately 90 million KRW) disguised as Korean-made.

Incheon Main Customs stated, "The fraudulent supply activities of the companies uncovered this time have deprived honest small and medium-sized enterprises with domestic manufacturing bases of procurement opportunities and even the jobs of workers. We plan to continue crackdowns to protect domestic SMEs, expand employment, and establish order in the public procurement market."