Smuggling during COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global trade in legitimate goods has declined sharply and is forecast to be down 10% year on year in 2020. Meanwhile, on July 1, Italian police made the largest amphetamine seizure in the world. What’s more, the trade in counterfeit drugs and medical equipment has been in overdrive. US border authorities recently confirmed that they had seized nearly a million units by the beginning of June. These record indicates that illegal smuggling during the pandemic is increasing. How does it happen?

Transportation

To some extent, illicit traffic will be more visible to authorities because legal trade flows have shrunk and there is additional checking at national borders. So criminals have had to innovate to keep their supply chains open. A good example is concealing illegal drugs in consignments of face masks or other medical supplies. Smugglers also change their modes of transport. Some activities that usually move by air or road-certain wildlife trafficking, for example-have switched to rail and maritime routes. There have also been drawbacks to maritime smuggling during the pandemic, including cargo congestion at seaports and reduced capacity because of coronavirus restrictions on vessels and crews. Trains, on the other hand, have been running relatively unscathed. They are also less scrutinised by officials and transporting more legal cargo than usual. Hence rail routes from Asia to Europe have become an attractive alternative for transporting counterfeit consumer goods.

Sales and production

Also, criminals have had to learn new techniques of concealment and evasion in making and selling their contraband. Firstly, posting small parcels of illicit goods in the mail, which has existed before the crisis,seems even more popular in some places during the pandemic. Secondly, Online trading has long been the main platform for illicit goods, and this too has grown in 2020. At least 100,000 new websites have emerged since March selling COVID-related substandard or fake medical items. Finally, there are also signs of more counterfeit consumer goods selling online, including fake car parts and accessories. Demand for counterfeits is likely to keep rising as the economy worsens, and because some legitimate goods are more scarce than usual.

Some smuggling tricks smugglers are using

1. Money smuggled in pastries

2. Cocaine smuggled in Easter eggs

3. Cocaine smuggled in door

4.Exotic frogs smuggled in camera film containers

5. Almost a metric tonne of marijuana in the shape of a donkey

What next

Counterfeiting and smuggling have been made easier by the more dispersed supply chains in our globalised world. Yet these networks are likely to shrink after the pandemic as multinationals bring some manufacturing nearer home to be less vulnerable to the kind of trade restrictions seen in 2020.

Shorter and simpler supply chains for legitimate goods will most affect illicit products that are smuggled on the back of them. This would include not only things like drugs concealed in shipping containers but also counterfeit consumer goods “sneaked” into authentic consignments of the same product and sold as the real thing. On the other hand, counterfeits that can be distinguished from the brand-name product usually rely on an independent supply chain.

Posted by: 0183100045 Li Zhihao 李志豪 for the final project of the course Global Governance and International Organizations