Report: Palestinian Women Smuggling Huge Quantities of Cheap Tobacco From Jordan
2.8 million cigarettes have been confiscated this year, but smuggling techniques are difficult to detect and mean ‘much bigger’ quantities of tobacco pass freely through customs.The amount of tobacco being smuggled from Jordan into Palestine is “much bigger” than the amount being stopped by PA customs, according to a Palestinian official.
“Women mostly are the ones who are carrying out the smuggling,” Mohammed Rabih, an assistant to the director of Palestinian Customs, told U.S. new-site Al Monitor.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/1.673810
Lear MoreAfrican Startup Using Phones to Spot Counterfeit Drugs
Drug Lane runs through a market in the heart of Accra, Ghana. It’s past the office towers going up to the east of the central business district, past the pushy vendors with fake Louis Vuitton luggage, and past the women selling trays of raw beef under the midday sun. The alley bristles with signboards for pills, powders, and other substances. One store is packed to the rafters with boxes of painkillers and antibiotics. On the wall are two posters: One is for Coartem, a malaria treatment made by the Swiss drug company Novartis, and the other advertises something called Recharger, supposedly made from the male silkworm moth. The notice is vague about specific uses, but it does advise using condoms.The man behind the counter, Yaw Frempong, can’t recommend either drug—at least not formally. Like 85 percent of the people selling medicine in Ghana, he isn’t a pharmacist. Most of his stock comes from China, India, and Malaysia, imported by Ghanaian distributors who supply everyone from “licensed chemical sellers” like him to actual pharmacies and hospitals.
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Smuggling fines boost State budget
As many as 11,500 cases of smuggling and trade fraud have been uncovered in the first seven months of this year alone, the General Department of Vietnam Customs reported yesterday.
The smuggled goods were estimated to be worth nearly VND119 billion (US$ 5.3 million).
According to the committee, more than VND90.5 billion ($4.2 million) was contributed to the State budget during this period of time through seizure of smuggled goods.
“Authorities nation-wide have conducted spot checks and imposed fines on over 130,000 violations since the committee’s establishment in 2014, which helped contribute around VND4 trillion ($178 million) to the State budget,” said deputy head of the General Department of Vietnam Customs, Nguyen Van Can.
http://vietnamnews.vn/society/275145/smuggling-fines-boost-state-budget.html
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‘Epidemic’ of illegal tobacco as 8m cigarettes seized
Limerick’s only licensed tobacconists is to stop selling cigarettes because of an “epidemic” of illegal trading of smuggled packs on city streets. Cahill’s in Wickham St has been trading for over 150 years. Owner, Eleanor Purcell, said: “I stock up to a 100 different brands of cigarettes. But now I find I am being driven out of the cigarette market due to the huge increase in sales of smuggled cigarettes in the city. I estimate that over the past few years my cigarette trade — which constituted 80% of my business — has plummeted to 20% of my business.”
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/epidemic-of-illegal-tobacco-as-8m-cigarettes-seized-350415.html
Lear MoreCorner shop owners know illegal tobacco is being sold
A new survey has found that more than half of corner shop owners (57 per cent) are aware of smuggled/counterfeit products being sold in their area.
Alarmingly, 73 per cent of retailers believe that smuggling/cross border purchases will increase in the next 12 months. This coincides with the introduction of regulations from the EU which will ban the sale of cigarette packs of less than 20 and packs under 30g of hand rolling tobacco.
Lear MoreFive arrested in smuggling investigation
Five men have been arrested in North London, on suspicion of smuggling tobacco and alcohol, after an operation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to tackle an estimated £1m tax fraud.
The men were arrested after suspected illegal cigarettes were discovered in a vehicle at an industrial unit in the Tottenham area. The cigarettes were found in hollowed out metal plating, part of a cargo that had arrived from Poland. Further searches of two other industrial units revealed large quantities of suspected smuggled alcohol.
In total, HMRC officers seized 3,500,000 cigarettes and over 150,000 cans of beer and cider from the industrial units. During subsequent searches of private addresses and vehicles officers seized £40,000 in cash.
Lear MoreCounterfeit products worth Dh75m seized
The largest of its kind haul in Dubai unearths half-a-million pieces of fake printers and ink cartridges. The Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection (CCCP) sector in the Department of Economic Development (DED), Dubai, has confiscated pirated goods worth Dh75 million, the largest seizure of its kind in Dubai.
The department raided a warehouse in the emirate and seized more than half-a-million pieces of duplicate printers and ink cartridges. The raid was a part of DED’s ongoing efforts to protect intellectual property and trademark owners as well as to enhance Dubai’s reputation as a business hub locally and globally.
http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/retail/counterfeit-products-worth-dh75m-seized-1.1573361
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Retailers and product safety – your responsibilities
Product safety law is fraught with dangers for those in the supply chain and is especially acute for those involved in retail, says Teresa Hitchcock. Failure to comply with legislation can lead to prosecution.
Further, there are a number of enforcement powers available to the regulatory authorities, which are backed up by sanctions in addition to prosecution where retailers fail to ensure that products which they placed on the market or supply for sale are safe.
Given the potential repercussions, retailers do need to ensure that they are aware of and meet their responsibilities with regard to product safety.
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How mPedigree built a business by combating counterfeit products
The mPedigree Network is an African enterprise offering manufacturers the technology to help combat the sale of counterfeit products. It has been particularly successful in protecting both pharmaceutical companies and consumers from purchasing fake medicine in African countries, where the informal distribution and retail channels have made it easy for counterfeits to perforate the market.
The company, founded in 2007 by Ghanaian entrepreneur Bright Simons, has since grown operations to 12 countries, with offices in nine, including India. It has hundreds of clients, including manufacturers of veterinary medicine, electrical products, baby food, cosmetics and high-yield seeds used in agriculture.
Former NC correctional officers accused of smuggling cellphones, contraband to inmates
Two former state correctional officers were charged Monday in federal court in connection with a bizarre kidnapping case in which a prison inmate is alleged to have orchestrated an intrastate scheme with a contraband cellphone.Gregory Dustin Gouldman, 31, at Polk Correctional Institute from 2005 to May 2015, is accused of smuggling mobile phones, tobacco, marijuana and packages of AA batteries into a “high-security maximum control unit.”
Jason Dean, 29, a pawn shop worker who was hired at Polk in 2014, is accused of extorting “things of value” from inmates and lying to FBI agents and a federal grand jury investigating contraband smuggling after the kidnapping in 2014 of a Wake County prosecutor’s father.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article32267136.html
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