- Seizures of genuine illegal tobacco grow more than 28% to exceed 7.5 million packs, 86% of the total

- Interdepartmental collaboration allows 251 million euros of tax fraud to emerge, ten times more than in 2011

The Tax Agency, through the Department of Customs and Excise, reported in 2012 a total of 2,887 alleged crimes against the Public Treasury, money laundering and smuggling of tobacco, narcotics and counterfeit products, and made arrests for smuggling and laundering against 3,386 people.

Furthermore, throughout the past year, assets worth more than 531 million euros have been seized and seized, 65.8% more than in 2011. This figure includes the valuation of both seized contraband products, with the exception of narcotics, and real estate, accounts, seized balances and other assets seized within the framework of the actions carried out by Customs to combat smuggling, money laundering and tax fraud.

The work of repressing customs fraud, economic crime and smuggling carried out by the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT) has been characterized in 2012 by an increase in the number of seizures of cigarettes destined for the peninsular market, as well as of complaints for economic crimes.

At the same time, there has been a significant increase in the value of the seized counterfeit products and, in parallel, a decrease in the quantities of narcotics seized, especially cocaine.

Seizures of genuine tobacco increase

Within the annual fraud control plan designed by the Tax Agency, the fight against tobacco smuggling is one of the priorities. In 2012, and after several years of activity marked by the persecution of counterfeit products, the efforts of Customs Surveillance to combat this illegal traffic have focused on the smuggling of genuine tobacco (without brand impersonation), which is increasingly established in Spain in the face of the increase in demand that derives from its low price.

In this area, seizures have increased by 28.7%, exceeding 7.5 million packets seized. If counterfeit tobacco is added, last year the Agency managed to prevent the introduction of more than 8.7 million packs into the legal circuit.

At the same time, increased consumption of roll-your-own tobacco has led to increased smuggling of bites. Given this change in the trend in the mechanics of organized crime, the Agency's actions have led to the seizure of more than 41,600 kilos of rolling pins, an amount 6.5 times greater than that seized the previous year.

This work to repress tobacco smuggling has made it possible to avoid fraud in customs duties, VAT and Special Taxes of more than 28 million euros and has been completed with the arrest of 158 people and the reporting of 82 alleged smuggling crimes.

Currently, the Tax Agency maintains a strategy to combat this illicit trafficking based on increased controls at entry points and retail distribution, investigations as a judicial police Customs Surveillance of distribution networks and money laundering derived from of this smuggling, the toughening of the penalty for the crime of smuggling in force since 2011 and the increase in exchanges of information and cooperation with other customs offices.
Faced with this rise in criminal activity related to tobacco, there has been a diversion towards other countries in the inflows of narcotic drugs to the European Union. In 2012, 6.9 tons of cocaine and 109.5 tons of hashish were seized. Last year the Tax Agency reported 739 alleged crimes of cocaine smuggling and 1,766 of hashish.

The annual fraud control plan of the Tax Agency also marks as a priority activity the comprehensive control of the import and sale of merchandise with the aim of dismantling possible underground economy circuits. In this sense, last year the value of seized counterfeit products doubled, exceeding 339 million euros, as well as that of reported crimes (171), despite the fact that the number of objects seized was reduced by half ( 1.9 million).

Tax fraud and money laundering

Another key activity in the Customs and Excise Department of the Tax Agency is the detection and repression of money laundering generated from the profits generated by smuggling. In this area, the Agency has reported a total of 102 alleged money laundering crimes for an amount of 237 million euros and has seized assets worth 137.5 million euros.

At the same time, and as a result of actions related to tax fraud in more than 600 operations carried out in 2012, it has been possible to identify tax fraud in the amount of 251.7 million euros, ten times more than the previous year, with the complaint of 27 alleged tax crimes. In this control function, a growing use of corporate networks has been identified to carry out fraud related to foreign trade in goods and the movements of products subject to excise taxes.

In the tax field, the work of Spanish Customs focuses on the control of the taxes that it is responsible for managing (import tariffs, VAT and Special Taxes) from a perspective that is as least intrusive as possible, with the aim of facilitating normal development of foreign trade. Last year, more than 8.4 million containers entered and left through Spanish ports and almost 650,000 tons of merchandise circulated through airports.

The taxes managed by the Department of Customs and Excise Taxes amounted to a total of 28.4 billion euros in 2012, an amount that represents 39% of the total income collected from indirect taxes.