Malta Customs seizes 3 billion euro worth of goods in five years
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In the past five years Malta Customs has seized over three billion euro worth of goods, including some 209 million euro worth of counterfeit products.
Between 2015 and 2020, year on year, Malta Customs has improved its efficiency levels when dealing with goods infringing the intellectual property rights and managed to seize millions of counterfeit goods.
Counterfeit items withheld by Customs since 2015 include clothing to footwear, belts, wallets, bags, sport items, footballs, wrist watches, sunglasses, mobile phones, mobile accessories, electronics, game controllers, vanity cases, cosmetics, shampoo, hair products, deodorants, tooth paste, tooth brushes, washing powder, dog collars, auto parts, auto accessories, car emblems, toys, pens, feed additives, face masks, gas cylinder seals, pharmaceuticals, and candy.
The last annual publication of the results of Customs actions at EU external borders provides an opportunity to measure the scale of Customs actions required to enforce intellectual property rights (IPR).
The enforcement of IPR by customs is a priority for the European Commission and for Member States.
As regards to seized articles, Malta, with over 2.4 million seized articles, placed among the top three Member States; Germany being on top (4.7 million articles) and Greece in second place (2.6 million articles).
Considering that business related with counterfeit goods may provide links to global organised crime groups, Malta Customs has been disseminating all the information pertaining to these seizures to foreign counterparts and investigative institutions.
Over a period of five years the Customs Department has seized nearly 2.7 billion euros worth of goods, as follows:
Tramadol Pills – €1, 200 million (1.2 billion);
Consignments in breach of sanctions – €927.3 million;
