International Customs Operation “Early Bird" completed

The German Zollkriminalamt (Customs Criminal Office), together with the German Department of Foreign Affairs, has coordinated on behalf of the Council of the European Union, and in cooperation with the Swedish Customs authority the first European wide control operation for the prevention of the proliferation of sensitive goods, e.g. goods for the production of weapons of mass destruction.

In November 2009, customs authorities from eighteen EU-Member States carried out a joint control operation under the pseudonym “Early Bird". The aim of the one-week operation was to prevent possible deliveries of sensitive goods by air freight traffic that are subject to the EU-sanctions regime against Iran.

The risk-oriented controls took place at major airports. In the course of the operation, about 170 warning messages were exchanged by customs experts from eight states through an Operational Coordination Unit, which was hosted at the premises of the World Customs Organization (WCO) in Brussels. More than twenty deliveries of goods were temporarily stopped for further examination by the licensing authorities. One criminal investigation has been initiated and is still ongoing.

Apart from goods with a declared final destination of Iran the customs authorities also expanded their controls to goods that were destined to persons seated in third-party states in order to disguise their true final destination.

During the operation, the participating states consolidated their national knowledge and chose, via jointly defined risk parameters, which air cargo shipments to examine.

Against the background of the Iranian nuclear programme the European Community has issued several provisions governing license requirements, as well as the ban on imports, exports and the provisioning of certain goods (so called embargo on Iran).
These provisions explicitly request EU-Member States to take the necessary actions for their implementation. This includes suitable and effective border controls as well as criminal investigations and prosecutions.

The European Union´s council´s working group „Customs Cooperation Working Party“ has been initiating Joint Customs Control Operations for many years with the aim of strengthening the cross-border combat of smuggling of sensitive goods. This requires close international cooperation on the basis of a consistent and continuous exchange of information.

Apart from the Swedish customs authorities as the “Co-Runner" of the operation, the Dutch customs authorities acted as the “special supporter" and the WCO supported the Zollkriminalamt during the planning and delivery of the operation “Early Bird".

Further to this no more information can be provided.