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Smuggling first made its way into Romania’s defense strategy over the next four years. It is considered a threat to national security, along with other crimes that until now did not appear in the document, such as tax evasion, money laundering and counterfeiting of goods.
“If (smuggling – no) had not been included in the Strategy, which is the only document that reaches Parliament on the issue of threats and risks to national security, then if it had not been included, it is likely that at some point there would have been raised the question of why resources are consumed, which are always significant. It is a simple crime and then it is definitely not military in nature, we do not send the army after a criminal, “Hari Bucur Marcu, an expert in national security, explained to Digi24.
Therefore, smuggling, a phenomenon that dseriously affects the Romanian budget, is considered for the first time a threat to national security and appears in the new Strategime northnational of Aopinion of the country.
The most common smuggled products in Romania are cigarettes. The black market for smuggled tobacco appears to be declining slightly, but however, the volume of catches is impressive – last year assets worth 16 million euros were seized.
And the state wants to combat the phenomenon only on paper: scanners purchased with European money to detect contraband goods are not used. Romania is based on a single X-ray machine bought in 2005 by the company that manages the seaports.
What profit do cigarette dealers get?
Police car sirens, “Stop shooting!” and even gunfire is quite common, especially on the northern border of Romania. This is where most of the smuggled cigarettes are smuggled into the country.
A container of illegal cigarettes represents a profit of 1 million euros for traffickers and losses for the state budget. The price of cigarettes in neighboring countries (Ukraine, Moldova) is 4 times lower than in our country, so the phenomenon seems difficult to stop.
Romania raised the most money from cigarette taxes in 2019, because the black market has fallen below 14% for the first time in the last six years. Still, the catches last year amounted to more than 78 million lei.
Our country manages 2,000 kilometers from the external border of the EU.
Scanners purchased with European money are not used, police rely on tips
ANAF says in a reply to Digi24 that it only has one scanner at the Constanza-Sud Agigea customs to detect the contraband goods: an old device, bought in 2005. The scanners bought with European money to combat the phenomenon are not yet used and border guards rely on tips to catch the traffickers.
Recently, in the port of Constanța Sud – Agigea, the police who went to the landfill discovered in a container from the United Arab Emirates more than 412,000 packs of cigarettes, camouflaged in plastic furniture. The goods, shipped from the United Arab Emirates, were worth more than 1 million euros.
ANAF also says that six mobile X-ray scanning systems were purchased last year. The devices are used in the field during surveillance and control actions in Iaşi, Cluj. Timisoara, Craiova and Galati.
Web edition: Luana Păvălucă
