The smuggling trade of animals

The smuggling trade is becoming every day more invasive and dangerous for the Italian economy : there are numerous container and truckloads of cigarettes, fake toys , puppies , drugs , alcohol and mineral oils that try to cross the border with Italian tricks more and more sophisticated . . Only the business of counterfeit goods coming from abroad according to Confindustria worth € 5 billion of lost tax revenues annually. And among cartons of cigarettes , medicines, metals - Ancona have just been intercepted 2.5 tonnes of silicon metal underground arrived from China - the chasm widens at least 6.5 billion Euros 
Once the traffic to and from Italy was deal of crime
flag. Today , the industry has globalized . On the scene working the former Russian secret service agents and Chinese nationals in a few years they have built a sort of monopoly in the world of tobacco and false .
Ancona , the docks of Venice and Bari or crossings of Friuli are the main doors to enter our country. Customs officials confirm that 2010 is the year of revival of cigarette smuggling . As early as 2009 had seen a 11 percent increase in seizures . Since January , however, there has been an escalation ; only in the port of Ancona traffic cartons of cigarettes has increased by 300 percent. A Gioia Tauro in one day ended up in the net of three investigators containerarrivati ​​from China with 31 tons of cigarettes ( equivalent to 12 per cent of all seizures in 2009) and Manchester trademark seal "Made in UK ". The trafficking of illegal tobacco , came was 15-20 percent of the market in the mid- 80s , had been defeated at the beginning of the millennium. Last year it was already risen 3 percent this year and the figure is expected to make a leap forward towards the 13 per cent average in Europe. The crackdown on excise duties , in the end, encourages smokers to turn to illegal market ";
according to the values ​​of 2009 , due to smuggling , taxation tricolor lose € 370 million annually ; Europe has a gap of 14.5 billion euro of lost excise duty , while the producers are missing 3.7 billion in revenues every twelve months. The smugglers , estimates the World Custom Organization, instead profit from a return on investment of 375 percent. A cargo of cigarettes bought in Ukraine and sold at half price compared to the market price in the UK makes 68,500 Euros for a trip in a van , car and 1.1 million by 6800 if traveling by container . These figures alone explain why organized crime is coming back to take an interest in this line of business . " A few weeks ago, for the first time in years, we have traced in Greece Lagonissi a clandestine mass transit base standing by the Mafia ," says Yannis Kapeleris , the 007 Greek head of the anti- crime task force commissioned by President George Papandreou . China is by far at the top producers of tobacco smuggling ( 64 per cent of seizures according to the European Union ), followed by Ukraine and Russia. Clandestine factories have been found even in Greece and Belgium ;
In addition to cigarettes , even the business of smuggling drugs is a bargain now come astronomy figure of 100 billion Euros a year. With packs of illegal products equal to 50 percent of the market " in some areas of Africa and Asia ," as calculated Guido Rasi , Director General of Italy and the Italian drug firm - thankfully - 0.1 percent, " thanks to the traceability of the packaging ." Although the trend is growing. "In the world there are more illegal drugs than real ," admits Christophe Zimmerman , head of counterfeiting of the World Customs Organization. The ranking of the most popular pills in the Italian market is a faithful picture of the diseases of modern times : at the top for at least six years there have products for erectile dysfunction in men. Only in the port of Venice from the beginning of this year have been intercepted twenty thousand boxes of Viagra, Cialis and lawful. From the onset of the magic blue pill in 2004 " were seized in the world 63 million packages false and material to produce another 64 ," said Steve Allen , director of the security division of Pfizer, the manufacturer. They follow in the ranking anti-depressants , and anabolic diet . Arrive a bit ' all over the world . In network operation " Pangea " - closed a month ago by Nas and Customs Agency with five arrests and the seizure of 10 000

illegal drugs - are finite pills and vials games from Moldova , Romania, Russia and India. An unsuspecting retiree Mercedes was instead shuttled between Switzerland and San Marino to buy products not authorized in Italy or cheaper, then sold , support investigations of the Financial Police closed a few months ago, through the legal channels . A turnover of € 12 million of gains in black and 2.5 subtracted from the tax which he got in trouble 26 pharmacies in Brescia. However, in Italy , the data in hand , it is risky to buy a drug . The official network tricolor is among those with the highest transparency in Europe with a risk free rate of 0.1 per cent against the continental average of 1 per cent . The real problem is the boom in the business of smuggling drugs via the Internet. A recent study of the European Alliance for Access to safe medicines has calculated that 62 percent of the products featured on the net is fake or counterfeit . A time bomb because , inter alia, 90 percent of the sites analyzed did not require any prescription. "Another channel at risk are illegal pharmacies open by organized crime, beauty centers , gymnasiums and sex shops ," says Rasi , and concludes , " a counterfeit product may be identical to the original. But also do not have track of active principle or in some cases contain toxic substances. Just think of the recent case of heparin counterfeit U.S. alone has caused 100 deaths ";
one of the smuggling business with the highest growth rate is that of the auto parts . In Europe, the Commission estimates , between 5 and 10 percent of the parts mounted on the car is contraband for a annual turnover of 1.2 billion Euros . Italy , in this risiko of connecting rods, pedals, brakes, wheels and bearings has a dual role : as a consumer because CENSIS calculated in 1 , 6 percent of the market fake parts . But mostly as a central sorting of the material smuggled to the rest of Europe . " Much of the traffic false - to confirm Clepa , the continental organization Segment - comes to us through the ports of Italy." For the production and origin of these products , the Quality brand protection committee ( Qbpc ) has identified as the most critical area of the Zhejiang region of China , and in particular the city of Thaizou bumper and body parts and Ruj'An on air filters and of oil. "Here, alongside the official factories there is a parallel market that produces millions of fake pieces ," says the study by the research . From this area , for example, came from wheel rims for 4000 Fiat Grande Punto for a company of Treviso seized earlier this year in Venice in a container from finance. Perfect pieces to retail brand and manufacturer's codes but far more dangerous as reliability : the wheels were the wrong size (a little ' bigger than the original ) and very risky especially for those who had tried to mount them on his car . The tests carried out by the certification body TUV and Fiat have shown that three out of four cases the fakes broke before the end of the test regulations . So how bad were 180 thousand ball bearings (90 tons of material ) and counterfeit and contraband with the SKF brand in the province of Caserta. The most popular products are the spark plugs , filters, belts. But the most worrying thing - to emphasize Qbpc - "is that in recent times have been recovered from different parts of smuggling counterfeit brake systems ." These parts are used or consumers , but to save money, accept the risk , or by body builders who profit from dishonest about it on the gap in value between an original and a copy of smuggling. Scissors which is tempting because it often - despite the law authorizes the production of non-original certificates of equal quality - is still very large ;
born a few years ago , the odious phenomenon of smuggling of puppies , took off in a few years, reaching today in Italy, according to the estimates of Lav, a value of about 300 million euro per year. The classic route is the one from the East

Europe, especially Hungary and Italy via the port land . Chihuahua, Yorkshire, bulldogs and other valuable species are bought in the puppy -mill premises at an average price of 65 euro around two months old, too early to detach from the mother. Crammed into cages and hidden in the luggage van and car travel for 15-16 hours to Italy where they are then introduced to the legal market with the help of conniving shops . Animals that fail to arrive at the destination, among other things, however, are in poor health . " This is forcing us to have to deal with puppies who are severely ill , suffering from major diseases such as parvovirus and distemper or infested with intestinal parasites - tells Carlo Scotti , president of the Italian veterinarians - . Not to mention hereditary disorders progeny resulting from uncontrolled , not selected by the reproductive point of view . " The gain for smugglers is very high. "On average we have loads of 300 puppies seized by - tell the Guardia di Finanza in Bologna, where a band was cut in four years had brought to Italy 70 thousand animals. Every dog ​​is resold in Italy around € 1,000-1,500 and then , after deduction of expenses of travel, a single car made ​​at least 30 thousand Euros each way . " The smuggling of animals , however, is not limited only to barbarism puppies . The business of trafficking in exotic animals , from parrots to pythons , spiders up iguana , that in our country 2 billion Euros per year. Every year in Italy kidnap two thousand live animals. The last bizarre blitz aired last summer on the waters of Lake Maggiore where the Guardia di Finanza has controlled a large camouflaged barge in lake traffic in August. On board 26 thousand unaware of trout fry clandestine route Italy - Switzerland - :