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The European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) has completed its operation called "Focus" held from January to September 2007. During the operation, in total there were 223 seizures reported and 850 pieces of information were exchanged between the participants of the Operation. The total value of the seized goods reached almost 1 million USD. The operation was focusing on the following fields of criminal activity - illegal migration and trafficking in human beings, trafficking of drugs and weapons, smuggling of goods through border crossing points, smuggling at the "green" or land border, reports the EUBAM web-site.
A number of targeted operations were carried out, for example concerning identification of vehicles brought to Transdnestr, and then imported to Ukraine, allegedly due to the "owner" moving for permanent residence to Ukraine, thus avoiding payment of duties and taxes. Over 400 vehicles were imported in this way to Ukraine this year, of which 6 had been stolen in EU countries. Head of the EUBAM Ferenc Banfi stressed the analysis has shown that Transdnestr and Moldova are a kind of a warehouse for illegally imported vehicles.
Besides, the operation concerned the criminal organization of illegal migration by people originating from the Republic of Moldova who tried to reach EU countries through Ukraine. The operation was carried out with the assistance of the Hungarian and Slovak authorities and is the biggest success of "FOCUS". In just 5 days, more than 64 illegal migrants were identified, tracked and returned. Each intended to pay 3-5 thousand Euros to the organizers if they arrived at their destination. As a result 3 criminal cases were initiated, 2 persons were arrested. Many of them used the Transdnestr as a route to Ukraine, because they judged that controls inside that territory are weak.
The operation was also intended to suspend the manipulation of meat products presumably for the purpose of tax fraud. It involved a carousel of document circulation between Moldovan and Ukrainian companies. State losses reached thousands of USD.
Large seizures of meat smuggled out of Transdnestr were held. This is a method of transporting allegedly processed chicken meat from Moldova to Ukraine, avoiding import taxes by means of forging the certificates of origin. Seizures of significant consignments of medicines, alcohol drinks and cigarettes were also reported, and the detection of a large scale case of cigarette smuggling across another border in the region was taken note of.
This was the first such operation in which a targeted approach was introduced. The participants were: representatives of the Border Guard and Customs Services, Ministries of Interior, security services and tax administrations of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine; the national border guard and customs service contact points in neighboring EU countries: Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland; the EU agencies FRONTEX (concerned with security at the EU's external borders/frontiers) and OLAF (the Anti-fraud Office); and the SECI Centre (Southeast European Co-operative Initiative Regional Centre for Combating Cross-border Crime), also participated.
The EUBAM (headquarters in Odessa) was launched on November 30, 2005, was established by the EU at the joint request of the Presidents of Moldova and Ukraine in their joint letter of 2 June 2005. It is a consultative and technical body with no executive powers. The Ukrainian-Moldovan border has a length of 462 km.
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