State Customs Service names hottest smuggling spots
Following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the key smuggling window in Ukraine has changed.
Orest Mandzii, head of the State Customs Service, said this in an interview with Censor.NET.
Details
"If earlier the Odesa Customs Office was the key smuggling window for us, then due to security challenges and the fact that the ports are now effectively not operating, logistics have changed, and the focus has shifted to northern and eastern Europe," he said.
In particular, according to Mandzii, the logistics route has moved to the Baltic Sea.
"This is the Tricity (the name of an agglomeration in northern Poland), Gdansk, Gdynia, Sopot. From there, these goods already enter the customs territory of Ukraine through western Ukraine. Accordingly, the Lviv Customs Office is in focus, as is the Chernivtsi Customs Office, which is the route from Turkey, and the Zakarpattia Customs Office, the section of the Hungarian border. And Odesa as well, because 40% of the previous trade turnover remains there. This is if we are talking about smuggling at the external border," the head of the State Customs Service explained.
At the same time, when it comes to "gray schemes," the final destination in most cases is the Kyiv Customs Office.
"To minimize losses, we carefully select customs control measures and check the compliance of certain cargoes. Unfortunately, there have already been precedents where, using a preference, goods were moved that had nothing to do with energy recovery at all," he added.
Read the interview with State Customs Service head Orest Mandzii for Censor.NET here.
