As part of its drive against smuggling and counterfeit goods, the European Commission published, on 13 April, the results of the joint customs operation dubbed ‘Matthew II’, carried out since June 2009 between 24 member states and five non-EU countries (Croatia, Serbia, Norway, Switzerland and Russia).

The operation initially aimed to detect the smuggling of cigarettes in commercial consignments entering the EU by road. It led to the seizure of large volumes of goods: 16 million cigarettes, 241 kg of tobacco products, 6,400 litres of alcohol, 20 tonnes of counterfeit perfumes, 53,418 other counterfeit items, such as bags, coats, scarves and wallets, and 1,515.75 kg of cannabis. The Commission estimates that this campaign prevented potential losses to the budgets of the EU and its member states of over €8 million in customs duties and taxes.

The operation focused on means of transport entering the EU customs territory from third countries via the Eastern EU border. Large seizures of cigarettes carried in personal cars and buses were also reported. This cooperation between member states and third countries to combat smuggling had support from the World Customs Organisation/Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for Western Europe (WCO/RILO) and Europol. The Czech Republic served as the main platform for the operation and the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) provided organisational and technical support, particularly the Anti-Fraud Information System (AFIS) for secure information exchange and the Virtual Operational Coordination Unit (V-OCU).