BUCHAREST, November 8th - More than 351.000.000 ciggarettes were seized in the first 6 months of this year by countries in South East Europe, members of the SECI Center. This is a 31% increase, compared to the 2nd semester of 2006. These were the conclusions of a report presented during the 6th Anti-fraud and Anti-smuggling Task Force Meeting held at the SECI Center. Attending this meeting were representatives from SECI Center member states, law enforcement organizations and private companies.“SECI Center has a new approach on combating the counterfeiting and smuggling phenomena, defined by two main ideas: joint coordinated actions and inter-agency cooperation. More and more we can see that fraud and smuggling are continuously increasing with organized crime issues and it is not possible to dismantle networks without inter-agency cooperation. We need to intensify the cooperation amongst authorities in the member countries in order to obtain effective results in fighting criminals. Another part of this approach is to focus on joint investigations and to apply a more intelligence led concept. The SECI Center exploited this concept in other task forces which proved to be effective”, affirmed Ion-Gabriel Sotirescu, Deputy Director and Head of Operations Support Department of SECI Center.
Over the past fifteen years, South East Europe has been strongly affected by the smuggling of highly taxed goods, as well as by the counterfeit and pirated goods involved in transiting through all the member countries. This phenomenon affects both governments and private companies, as was illustrated during the meeting. This is why SECI Center will intensify cooperation with the right holders.
The Anti-Smuggling and Anti-Fraud Task Force, one of the seven task forces established at SECI Center, has ensured effectiveness in assisting member countries to combat smuggling and customs fraud. The positive influence was mainly achieved by exchanging case information, coordinating regional anti-smuggling operations and supporting joint investigations on cigarette smuggling among the member countries.
