UNMIK ON AIR

18.4.2003

ECONOMY UPDATE – SMUGGLING

(LUAN QORRAJ)

Hello and welcome to UNMIK on Air

Smuggling has long been, even if not exactly legal, a socially acceptable occupation in Kosovo. For almost a decade it was the only way for some people to earn a living and has generally tended to be accepted as a normal job. And since smuggled goods are, as a rule, much cheaper then legally imported ones, the Kosovar consumer was much happier buying tax-free goods. Throughout the 90s, the Milosevic regime was the enemy, not smuggling.

But those days are over – today, every piece of merchandise that is smuggled inside or out of Kosovo causes millions of euros of damage to the general budget each year- more than enough to raise the salaries of teachers or doctors.

Paul Acda the director of UNMIK customs says that smuggling is like a virus. Once it starts spreading it affects even the businessmen who did not intend to turn to in smuggling in the first place:

Paul Acda: It also, of course, means that the businesses or the individuals that indulge in smuggling gain a financial advantage over their competitors so it makes it uncompetitive for the honest businessmen to operate and if it becomes widespread then the honest businessmen turns to smuggling if only to be able to compete with the criminal competitor

Smugglers have various means at their disposal to bring in goods – from fuel and cigarettes to food items or even alcohol. John Houskas, an UNMIK police investigator specialized in smuggling issues says that although some of the smuggled goods manage to enter Kosovo through official border crossings, the bulk of smuggled items come through the mountains, which form a large part of Kosovo’s borders and are ideal for smugglers. And the means of transport used, although we are now in the digital age, are still the same as in the Dark Ages.

John Houskas: Mostly for the goods they bring them down on various horses, mules, different pack animals, as far as if they are using that method of smuggling

And adds Houskas, both the police and KFOR are patrolling the borders as often as they can:

John Houskas: Regularly we try to get up here every day, every other day if we can, just to check what’s changed if there’s new activity that we can identify during the daylight and then work on it at night as best we can

After narcotics, cigarettes are the most smuggled items the world over. The problem in Kosovo, says Paul Acda, is that it is being used as a transit for cigarettes destined for other markets:

Paul Acda: At the moment the amount of cigarette smuggling into Kosovo is quite small. The problem is that large amounts of cigarettes are smuggled from Kosovo into other countries, into the region and perhaps maybe even further into the European Union and what that is doing is enabling, again, organized crime to function on the bases of economic crime, to make huge amounts of money.

In a bid to stop cigarette smuggling, Kosovar customs will now introduce a special stamp, which will identify any importer of cigarettes into Kosovo. And, if those cigarettes are found elsewhere it will be easy to track back their source. But this is only part of the solution stresses Paul Acda, UNMIK’s head of customs - the fight against smuggling has to penetrate all levels of society.

Paul Acda: You have to approach crime at every level you have to approach the crime from the individuals who sell smuggled goods, whatever they are, be they cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, furniture whatever it is. So you have to deal with that level, you have to deal with the intermediaries, smugglers and of course with the suppliers who know that they are supplying criminals.

Fines on smuggled goods amounted to over three million Euros last year alone – and that’s just a small part of the money lost due to smuggling. A sobering thought when one considers how what that money could be spent on. And that brings us to an end of this edition of UNMIK ON AIR. Thanks for listening.