6,600 customs crimes reported in 2020

Finnish Customs detected more than 6,600 customs offences in 2020, said Customs in a press release on Monday.

Customs seized about 770 kg of narcotics. A large amount of nicotine preparations was seized. In 2020, the Customs also seized a record amount of snus and more marijuana than it did in a decade.

The number of customs offences, however, was at its lowest in five years in 2020.

This was especially due to the exceptional Corona year and the fact that Customs made a significant intervention in the online trade of narcotics.

“The decrease of the total amount of customs offences is mainly due to two things. First of all, Customs managed to uncover and close down a significant amount of illegal trading venues operating in the Tor network, such as Sipulimarket and Silkkitie. When these large illegal trading venues were closed down, the amount of small narcotics consignments sent directly to the consumer-purchaser decreased considerably,” said Finnish Customs Director of Investigation Sami Rakshit.

Rakshit also said that the international passenger traffic plummeted because of the Coronavirus restrictions and, therefore, the amount of customs offences uncovered in the passenger traffic also decreased.

The societal impact of customs crime prevention in 2020 was about 57 million euro, compared to 70 million euro in 2019.

The change was largely due to the decrease in the amount of aggravated tax frauds. Most of the societal impact, 26 million euro, consisted of recovered proceeds of crime.

The most significant part of the impact of economic crime prevention consisted of losses due to the investigated criminal cases, altogether 10 million euro in 2020.

In 2020, Customs uncovered 917 cases of tax fraud, of which 98 were aggravated. This is less than that in 2019, when there were 1,362 tax frauds and 149 aggravated tax frauds.

The cases of aggravated tax fraud, classified as economic offences, mainly involved illegal import of cigarettes, alcohol, and snus as well as fraud in connection with excise duties, value added tax, anti-dumping duties, and customs warehousing. The cases of petty fraud decreased, especially due to the decrease in the passenger traffic.

Customs seized a total of 7,011 kg of snus in 2020, which is roughly 2,000 kg more than that caught in the year before, and the biggest amount ever seized.

Customs seized 4.5 million cigarettes in connection with criminal investigations in 2020. This was around 1.8 million cigarettes more than that in the year before, which is explained by two larger seizures. Cigarettes are mainly smuggled to Finland in smaller quantities, especially from Russia.

The amount of medicine violations doubled, especially nicotine pouches were more commonly seized

In 2020, Customs seized 769 kilos of narcotics in total, which is almost one thousand kilos less year on year.