The head of the European Union’s anti-fraud office (OLAF) has advised personal care product brand owners to work closely with customs authorities to help beat the counterfeit trade. OLAF Director-General Giovanni Kessler spoke out at a joint OLAF press conference in Brussels with the Belgian Customs and Excise Administration to highlight how their cooperation had brought down a fake perfume and cigarette smuggling ring.
Vincent Sauvalere, Head of Unit, Tobacco & Counterfeit Goods, explained that OLAF had received information about a suspect container of fake cigarettes from China heading into Belgium’s Zeebrugge port and tipped off Belgian customs, which identified two identical consignments on the same ship. Customs then followed the consignment through to a warehouse for a so-called “controlled delivery” where they found the same gang smuggling counterfeit perfume from Turkey, hidden in containers declared as containing water.
Sauvalere said that rather than intercepting cargoes at the
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