EU Customs Officers Caught $1.3 Billion Worth of Bogus Goods in 2012
European Union customs officers stopped nearly 40 million fake products at the border in 2012, the European Commission said in an annual report on customs actions for enforcement of intellectual property rights. While less than the 2011 figure, the value of the intercepted goods was around 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), it said.
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Cigarettes accounted for 31 percent of interceptions, followed by miscellaneous goods such as bottles, lamps and batteries (12 percent) and packaging materials (10 percent), the EC said. Around 70 percent of interventions involved postal and courier packages, 23 percent of those detentions arising from postal traffic containing medicines, it said.
China continued to be the main source for the bogus goods, the EC said. But Morocco led in fake foodstuffs; Hong Kong in CDs/DVDs and electronic cigarettes and their liquid filings; and Bulgaria in packaging materials. The report shows the “intensity and importance of the work being done by Customs in this field,” said Taxation, Customs, Anti-fraud and Audit Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta.