The Customs Service last year collected over 22.8 billion lei into the state budget, an increase of over 7% on 2018 and of over 12% on 2017, IPN reports, with reference to the customs authority.
The Service said that in 2019 it initiated 123 criminal cases, with the smuggled goods being assessed at over 88 million lei, an increase of 14% compared with the sums reported in 2018.
About 2.7 million undeclared cigarettes were discovered last year. This is thrice more than in 2018. The mobile teams of the Customs Service confiscated goods in almost 600 cases, which is an increase of 55% on 2018. The goods were assessed at 26 million lei.
Also, there were confiscated goods related to intellectual property rights to the value of over 5 million lei.
