EPPO

Last week (23 February 2022), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Rome led an operation where the Customs Office of Rome (Agenzia delle Accise, Dogane e Monopoli, ADM) seized almost €350 000 in cash from an Italian company that imported non-compliant surgical masks from China and supposedly evaded customs duties and VAT.

The surgical masks were imported from China through the special procedure of 'direct release'. This procedure qualifies for the exemption of import duties and VAT on personal protective equipment if they are delivered directly, and without any commercial mark-up, to public health facilities engaged in the fight against the pandemic.

However, the ADM found out that of the over 5,5 million imported masks, only 60% were actually foreseen for public health facilities, and the other 40% were for private entities, which are excluded from duty-free imports.

In addition, technical expertise revealed that the surgical masks were non-compliant with safety regulations and wrongly marked with the European conformity label “CE”, putting all users of the masks and their patients at risk. The masks have been seized on the administrative level as soon as the results of the expertise came out.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) signed today a cooperation agreement with the Italian excise, customs and monopolies agency (Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli, ADM).

The EPPO and the ADM agree to establish closer cooperation and communication between the two organisations. This will strengthen the effectiveness of the investigative action of the ADM under the coordination of the EPPO, in respect to the offences that fall within the competence of the ADM.

Thanks to the working arrangement, the offices of the EPPO in Italy can instruct a specific unit established by the ADM, to undertake investigations or to support already ongoing investigations. This will lay the groundwork for a very fruitful and efficient cooperation between both parties.

The Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency (Agenzia Dogane Monopoli) seized today €130 000 from a Sicilian business in an EPPO investigation. The company based in Palermo imported e-bikes from China and falsely declared the country of origin as Malaysia. By doing so, it evaded the payment of anti-dumping and countervailing duties at the height of €200 000 in total, of which €70 000 had been already recovered before with administrative proceedings.

The case was initiated thanks to a report by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), which led to a closer analysis and control of the import declarations made by the defendant, who was then reported to the EPPO office in Palermo for aggravated smuggling. Investigations on the company are ongoing.