Importing Marble From Vietnam

[zen4dummies]

My girlfriend and I recently bought some marble lions in Vietnam. They were shipped by boat, not by air as they said they would and the customs (Ministry of Commerce) people wanted to charge a tax that was equal to the cost of the marble, $740 (23,800 baht). I told them to send them back. We changed the material from marble to limestone so they came down a lot. Now they want to (maybe) charge me a 12% tax (not bad) and there is rumor of 10000 baht under the table. There may be other problems also - like they would not send it back. There is other BS also, like I might get in trouble for attempting to import illegal items. Nothing is for sure.

We are dealing with the freight forwarder.

I was also told that if I had used my girlfriends name on the address it would have been better.

Has anyone had experience with this? All advice will be appreciated.

Thanks, Michael