by Lia Sciortino
Chicken Smuggling
Documentaries | Vietnam
At the Vietnam-China frontier area, authorities spend sleepless nights. The place is a hotspot for smugglers, especially those who illegally transport chicken from China to Vietnam via different roads.
To make this daring documentary, Le Thi Thoa and Bui Tuan Linh pretended to be tourists and interviewed an illegal transporter who guided them through the dark and complicated world of chicken smugglers.
What’s more alarming than the illegality of the act is the possibility that these law breakers are facilitating the spreading of the H5N1 virus or avian flu. As they bring in chickens of unknown origin into the country, they are also endangering the lives of many Vietnamese, including their own.
“The village had some sick people. They could have died. It was terrifying.”