The World Customs Organization (WCO) has released the 2016 Illicit Trade Report, its flagship publication on cross-border smuggling of contraband.
The report tries to quantify and map the situation concerning illicit markets in the following six key areas: cultural heritage; drugs; environment; IPR, health and safety; revenue; and security.
“The aim of this Report is to raise the level of awareness on emerging smuggling and cross-border threats, whilst highlighting Customs’ global efforts to develop efficient enforcement strategies,” said the WCO in a written statement.
As in its previous editions, the analytical component of the report is based on customs seizures reported to the WCO Customs Enforcement Network (CEN) database by WCO members.
This year brings a fresh view, and to leverage the latest data visualization techniques, the WCO has partnered with the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing data-driven analysis and evidence-based reporting.
“C4ADS analysts and WCO experts worked together to present the data in a new way, offering readers strong visuals to illustrate the data,” said the statement. “Moreover, the report features a masterful blend of Customs data and open source information.” As a result, the trends and patterns identified are more solid and are backed up with concrete case studies as well as specific countries’ experiences.
“I hope that this edition of the Report will be immensely useful to the law enforcement community, and will serve as a reference tool for policy-makers, academia and all those interested in illicit trade and the efforts made by the global Customs community to make our nations safe and secure,” said WCO secretary general Kunio Mikuriya.
Photo: Tom Oates, 2008 (Transfered by BhagyaMani/Original uploaded by Nabokov)
