Hundreds of million of lei reach Moldova's state budget due to anti-fraud actions of customs officers

Chisinau, 18 January /MOLDPRES/ - Employees of the Customs Service arrested smuggled goods worth over 110 million lei in 2018. The data was included in the anti-fraud activity report of the institution for the last year.   

At the same time, in 2018, 235 criminal files were opened and the value of contraband goods set within the criminal prosecution was estimated at more than 154 million lei.   

Eleven criminal groups specialized in contraband were annihilated last year. According to the Customs Service, most of them were operating through the Transnistrian region, by avoiding the internal customs checkpoints.   

Also on the same period, fines amounting to more than 8.5 million lei were collected in the state budget. A twice as much increase was recorded in the field of protection of intellectual property rights at border, with 82 cases of arresting goods susceptible of being counterfeit registered. The arrested goods were estimated at about three million lei, up by 77 per cent against 2017. 

During 2018, import rights worth 343.7 million lei were recalculated and additionally collected as a result of customs control on the red and yellow corridors.