BRIEFS. TRADE

Customs agency opens anti-smuggling office

A new department within Panama’s Customs department will make it tougher for illegal goods to slip through controls.

The Department of Risk Analysis, opened by the Autoridad Nacional de Aduanas earlier this year, has already started creating a database profiling every importer and exporter that transacts business within the country.

The counter-smuggling office looks for any information that raises warning flags about the movement of goods 48 hours before arriving or leaving the port. This data includes the shipment’s weight, value, type of merchandise and provenance or destination.

Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Peru lead the list of countries considered most at-risk, according to Javier Arosemena, secretary general of Customs.

Importers and exporters will be assigned colors that represent their individual risk factor: green signals a clean record; orange for those with minor offenses; and red for repeated violations.

Those sporting green profiles will be given speedier transit through Customs processes, while the red businesses will undergo a more rigorous screening.

The database has already helped to uncover four cases of pirated merchandise arriving from Ecuador and China and two cases of illegal drug shipments destined for Spain and Japan. A shipment of rice was also discovered to be in a container labeled as toilet paper.