Customs and Drugs Report [ 2010 WORLD CUSTOMS ORGANIZATION Foreword FOREWORD It is a great honour to present to you the Operation took place in June 2010 with 25 rolling out new canine centres with the req- World Customs Organization’s (WCO) participating Member countries from West uisite training programmes and operational Report on international trafficking in drugs and Central Africa, together with Brazil and models to accompany them. and precursors for 2010. Morocco. A review of this Operation is con- tained in the third part of this Report. In The 2010 Customs and Drugs Report is di- This Report, which takes stock of and view of the excellent results achieved during vided into three main parts with statistical analyses drug seizures made by Customs this second Operation, Members wished to annexes. The first part gives an overview of services and joint teams in 2010, forms part repeat this exercise in 2011. the major drug types intercepted world- of a dynamic drug enforcement approach wide. The regional approach in terms of the which I wished to implement. These COCAIR Operations serve as the op- results achieved and the key trends noted by erational application of Project “AIRCOP” in Members are covered in the second part. On 26 June 2010, the WCO Secretariat cele- which the WCO is playing an active role. Finally, the third part presents special items, brated International Day against Drug Abuse AIRCOP is aimed at enhancing border con- with particular emphasis on initiatives and and Illicit Trafficking, an event launched by trols and management, especially in the in- projects implemented by the WCO the United Nations Office on Drugs and ternational airports of Africa, South America Secretariat for its Members. Crime (UNODC). To that end, I asked all and the Caribbean. Joint Airport Interdic- Directors General of WCO Member coun- tion Task Forces (JAITFs) are being set up Overall, the number of drug seizures re- tries to organize a variety of activities on that and provided with access to the WCO’s ported by WCO Members in 2010 de- day. This included operations to destroy CENcomm secure communication tool, as creased compared to 2009 and there was drugs and chemical precursors seized by well as to INTERPOL’s I-24/7 system. also a slight drop in the total quantity of Customs; actions to raise public awareness drugs intercepted as reported by Members. about drug-related problems; heightened As part of these efforts, the Secretariat or- This decrease can be explained by a number controls; and symposiums to show how ganized a Global Forum on the topic of dog of factors, primarily changes in some Customs and other law enforcement agen- and handler teams as part of the enforce- Members' operating structures and the fact cies are marshalling their forces to combat ment apparatus. The Forum was held from that some Members experienced difficulties drug trafficking. A poster promoting 25 to 27 January 2011, encompassing the in providing seizure data in time to be in- International Day against Drug Abuse and celebrations to mark International Customs cluded in this Report. The WCO Secretariat Illicit Trafficking was produced by the Day. This was the First Global Forum held will work with Members to obtain more Secretariat and made available to Members. by the WCO on this issue, which requires a comprehensive data for the 2011 Report. continuous exchange of experiences. The success of pilot Operation “COCAIR 1”, Nonetheless, the figures show that 21,079 the first of its kind in Africa, initiated by the The primary objective of this Forum was to seizure reports covering a total of 764 WCO, implemented in close co-operation share current best practices and experiences tonnes of drugs were recorded in 2010. with INTERPOL, UNODC and funded by among the various countries having set up the European Commission, was built upon dog and handler training centres, as well as Over the course of 2010, seizures of all and led to Operation “COCAIR 2”. The to identify shared challenges in terms of forms of cannabis (resin, herbal and oil) 2 WCO ANNUAL REPORT 2010 Foreword amounted to a total of 640 tonnes, a drop of the overall quantity of amphetamines and I would like to extend my sincere apprecia- over 9 % compared to 2009. Spain never- methamphetamines seized by Customs tion to WCO Members and the Regional theless remains the country having seized services remained stable (16 tonnes of prod- Intelligence Liaison Offices (RILOs) which most cannabis resin, and Morocco is un- ucts in 2010, the same as in 2009). have made a substantial contribution to this questionably still the primary source Report by entering cases and validating country of this substance. The countries of the Middle East were the seizure data. Indeed, analysis is only as valu- most effective in terms of amphetamine able as the quantity and quality of data on A little over 76 tonnes of cocaine were inter- seizures, together with the United States in which it is based. However, there is still cepted during 2010, compared to over 65 the case of methamphetamines. room for even greater participation and I tonnes in 2009, equating to an increase of some would therefore urge administrations to do 15 %. As in 2009, the countries of Western The data in this Report was compiled using their utmost to ensure that every drug and Europe seized the most cocaine (45 %), fol- information contained in the Customs precursor seizure is input into the CEN. lowed by the United States with 35 %. Enforcement Network (CEN) database, which has been operational since July 2000. I hope that this Report will provide valuable The trend noted between 2005 and 2008, Today, 165 WCO Member administrations assistance to Customs officers responsible for showing a somewhat uncharacteristic have access to the CEN database (over combating trafficking in drugs and precur- routing whereby cocaine shipments con- 420,000 entries on all manner of Customs of- sors, especially by providing them with in- signed in South America and with Europe as fences), an information and communication formation on new routings or modi operandi their final destination were stored in and system, a dedicated enforcement website and used by traffickers or simply by giving them transited via West and Central Africa, still a data bank of places of concealment. The a greater overall picture of the phenomenon. prevails. Nevertheless, this phenomenon growing number of Customs officers using declined in importance in 2009 and 2010, this network on a daily basis bears witness to with countries in the Caribbean region its effectiveness. playing a greater role. The CEN also includes applications such as Over 33 tonnes of opiate products were inter- the CENcomm communication tool which cepted by Customs in 2010, compared to only has enjoyed burgeoning success since 2004, 23 tonnes in 2009. This substantial increase Kunio Mikuriya the year it was introduced. Many regional or can be explained by exceptional seizures of Secretary General international operations were carried out in poppy straw reported by Pakistan Customs. World Customs Organization 2010 to combat not only trafficking in drugs The origin of opiate products intercepted in and chemical precursors, but also in the course of 2010 is essentially Afghanistan, weapons, cigarettes and counterfeit goods, thus confirming the trends observed for as well as money laundering. Some 33 oper- many years now. ations relating to various areas of crime, but essentially drugs, were conducted in 2010, With respect to psychotropic substances, compared to 24 in 2009. WCO ANNUAL REPORT 2010 3 Executive Summary EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Customs and Border Protection officers in Sydney (Australia) targeted a container of wooden doors shipped from Malaysia for examination. An X-ray of 295 doors revealed anomalies in 10 of them. Further examination revealed 24 packages of white powder inside the cavity of nine of the doors, while another contained 14 packages. Initial testing indicated that the powder was heroin. 168 kg in total were detected. (Photos courtesy of Australia Customs) A total of 113 Members reported seizures of drugs to the CEN database, relating to 33,607 cases. The following analysis is based on data over the minimum limit: this encompasses data from 111 Members totalling 21,349 cases. From reports Opium cultivation in Greece, Albania or the Former Yugoslav North America. In total, 46 % of the quanti- Afghanistan stayed at the same level as in Republic of Macedonia). The use of the “Silk ties seized were detected in Western Europe, 2009, although overall cultivation has de- Road Route” (via the Central Asian with 35 % being seized in the United States. clined significantly since 2007. However, the Republics of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, figures remain high compared to those re- Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) In 2009, Venezuela was the main source ported in the first few years of the new mil- has been stable over the past two years. country of cocaine shipments worldwide, lennium. The UNODC estimates that opium followed by Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. production declined from 8,890 to 7,754 The number of cocaine seizures decreased in This changed in 2010 with the main source tonnes over the period from 2007 to 2009. 2010, while the quantity of cocaine seized country becoming Mexico, followed by increased by almost 11 tonnes to 76.5 Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil and An examination of European seizures in ex- tonnes. The increase is mainly due to the fact Ecuador. In 2010, Panama played a more cess of 25 kg shows that the quantities that U.S. CBP reported all its seizures to the dominant role as a departure country to- transported via the traditional “Northern CEN system. An increase in quantities seized gether with the Dominican Republic, Peru, Balkan Route” (overland via Turkey, can be seen in almost all regions.