The WCO on 02 November released the 2016 Illicit Trade Report, its flagship publication in which the organisation tries to quantify and map the situation concerning illicit markets in the following six key areas: (i) Cultural Heritage; (ii) Drugs; (iii) Environment; (iv) Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), (v) Health and Safety; Revenue; and (vi) Security.
The aim of this Report is to raise the level of awareness on emerging smuggling and cross-border threats, whilst highlighting Customs’ global efforts to develop efficient enforcement strategies. As in its previous editions, the analytical component of the report is based on Customs seizures reported to the WCO Customs Enforcement Network (CEN) database by WCO members.
This year brings a fresh view, and to leverage the latest data visualisation techniques, the WCO has partnered with the Center for Advanced Defence Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing data-driven analysis and evidence-based reporting.
C4ADS analysts and WCO experts worked together to present the data in a new way, offering readers strong visuals to illustrate the data. Moreover, the report features a masterful blend of customs data and open source information. As a result, identified trends and patterns are more solid with concrete case studies to consolidate them as well as specific countries’ experiences.