Operation ‘Renacer (Revive)’

 

• This is the largest seizure ever recorded by the Tax Agency, equivalent to 10% of the seizures of counterfeit products carried out by Customs in the whole of 2014.  
• The counterfeit goods were found in 11 containers from China and destined for Africa and Spain.

 

April 13, 2015.- The Tax Agency, in collaboration with the Civil Guard, has completed a major anti-piracy operation at the Algeciras Customs Office with the seizure of a total of 309,416 counterfeit items with an estimated value of 17.5 million euros. It is the biggest seizure of false products detected in Spain, exceeding the 2008 operation, also under the management of the Agency in Algeciras, when 231,000 counterfeit articles were seized.

The operation, called ‘Renacer (Revive)’, initiated with investigations on 12 March when, during the usual custom checks of goods entering the European Union territory, it was decided to open a series of containers originating from Yantián (China), with a declared destination of Morocco, Senegal and Spain.

As a result of the analysis of information received and processed by the Tax Agency, and on the basis of pre-set risk profiles, an investigation was carried out which enabled the detection of inconsistencies, both in the declared details and the route taken, and in the characteristics of the shipment. This led the Tax Agency to decide on an exhaustive physical examination of these containers.

The illegal merchandise was detected upon opening the shipment, hidden behind a first screen of legal articles. The respective holders of the protected industrial property rights have already been informed of the facts and these will be sent to the police court of Algeciras for them to begin the corresponding prosecutions.

The operation was undertaken by the Risk Analysis Unit of Algeciras Customs, made up of civil servants of the Tax Agency Customs Surveillance and civil servants of the Civil Guard.

 

Unprecedented intervention

The seizure of false products in operation ‘Renacer’ alone represents the equivalent to 10% of all the false goods seized by the Tax Agency in the last year, when around more than three million counterfeit products were seized in 2,300 operations carried out by the Customs and Excise Duties Department.

In terms of the amount, the false goods now seized in Algeciras represent 11.5% of all the estimated value for the seized goods last year (17.5 million in operation ‘Renacer’, compared with a total of €151.9 million throughout 2014).

 

Textiles, footwear and electronics, the main seized products

With regards to the distribution by groups of products in the seizure in Algeciras, those related to the footwear, textiles and electronics were most notable. Footwear is the most relevant group by value of the products seized, which adds up to a value of almost €7.6 million, 43% of the total. The largest group by number of units is electronics, with 153,590 seized units, including hands-free systems, mobile phone chargers, USB storage devices, mixing decks and WiFi microphones.

	Units	Value (euros)
Electronics	153,590	2,695,590
Textiles	81,716	6,769,400
Footwear	63,058	7,599,600
Handbags and accessories	11.052	455,600
TOTAL	309.416	17,520,190

  

Fight against piracy

The fight against falsification and piracy is one of the main areas of research of the Tax Agency, which combats the risk to the consumer of counterfeited items and the unfair competition they cause for the corporate sector.

Throughout 2014, the Tax Agency drew up 137 sworn statements, with the corresponding criminal offences reports against intellectual and industrial property, and proceeded to arrest 124 people linked allegedly to this criminal activity.

Aware of the serious economic and social damage that the falsification business constitutes, the Tax Agency fraud control annual plan considers one of its priorities the full control of the import and sale of goods, in order to break up possible black market circuits.

Therefore the Tax Agency carries out a risk profile analysis of all national imports taking into account to the country of origin, type of product, acting parties and many other characteristics of the commercial operation.