One step ahead: how the WCO fights the counterfeiters
The voice of global customs, the World Customs Organization (WCO) speaks for 179 administrations that process 98 percent of world trade. Customs officials are the human shields against counterfeiting. In one enforcement operation in Africa this year, officials in 23 participating countries helped to seize more than one billion articles—including 550 million doses of illicit medicines.
The stash included anti-malarial drugs, antibiotics, analgesics and anti-inflammatories as well as mood-stabilising drugs and corticosteroids.
The WCO often has its work cut out in the attempt to clean up world trade. Today, counterfeiters are increasingly wily and, despite the WCO’s best efforts, stopping the stream of illegitimate goods is a complex and challenging task.
“A very common type of cross-border transaction often involves what appears to be an erratic criss-crossing of consignments, enabling the true origins to be obscured and new, including fake, certificates of origin to be issued,” says Allen Bruford, the WCO’s deputy director, compliance and facilitation.
“Counterfeiters analyse interceptions, understand how their shipment was targeted and change patterns. They will use another company to transport their goods, declare the goods in a different way, mix genuine and fake products, send the fake marks in one shipment and the fake components or ingredients in another, and move the goods differently. They also exploit the differences in border control from port to port,” he adds.
Political will
These are some of the typical problems that the WCO, headquartered in Brussels, faces every day. But there are other, more complex difficulties the organisation must grapple with, which can accentuate the basic problems posed by counterfeiters.
Bruford says these include a lack of legislation to address the reality and needs of society, a lack of political will, a lack of real interest by rights owners for intervention, a lack of adequate training and awareness of the issue, and a lack of adequate exchange of information and data.
“These issues are intertwined with one another,” says Bruford. “Without appropriate legislative backup, customs cannot act and nor can rights holders. Without political will to address the situation, nothing is going to happen. Without understanding the scope of this fraud, no political will is generated.
"Topics include the WCO tools to help rights owners, the role of customs in major sporting events (often targeted by ambush marketers and counterfeiters) and improving all national IP regimes."
Even with appropriate legislation in place, without proper awareness among law enforcement officials and proper training to enforce the legislation, without real interest by rights holders to act upon customs’ notification and without information exchange among relevant stakeholders, the effectiveness of the framework for combating counterfeiting and piracy will not function properly and may even be counterproductive.”
The nature and severity of counterfeiting varies largely from state to state, so the WCO cannot adopt a ‘one size fits all’ strategy for helping its members address the problem. A tailoring service is preferred, and Bruford notes that the WCO helps countries identify their individual needs and design their own ‘corrective’ programmes.
“Our diagnostic missions take account of the socio-economic realities of each country. They assess the whole anti-counterfeiting regime surrounding each member organisation.”
A key part of the WCO’s strategy is the ‘action plan’, which aims to provide customs officers with the right tools to fight counterfeiting. Frontline officers need continual on-the-job training, Bruford says, so they can develop a “strong operational knowledge”.
“What makes the WCO IP rights seminars effective is that they do not end in the classroom. In close cooperation with the host country of the seminar, participants gain access to actual or ‘live’ shipping documents in order to analyse information in these documents and thereafter identify any possible risks with a view to targeting containers or cargo that most likely contain counterfeits.
Once this exercise is completed, participants are then taken to container yards where they open targeted containers to verify whether their analysis is correct.”
Rights owners are encouraged to lead these sessions and share their expertise with customs officers, who can familiarise themselves with branded goods. In fact, brand owners are central to the action plan, says Bruford, and during each training operation there will typically be about 20 rights holders present.
Another major weapon in the WCO armoury is the Interface Public-Members (IPM), an online tool which serves as an interface between field customs officers and rights holders. It contains specific information on products, such as the routing and packaging of genuine goods and gives direct access to rights holders and their representatives.
The success of the IPM encouraged the WCO to offer the service on mobile platforms in April 2013. This version offers new features allowing users to scan barcodes found on millions of products and search databases of products in a more time-efficient manner.
“Scanning the barcodes will enable automatic connection to any authentication or track and trace services linked to the product,” Bruford says. “Customs officers will now be able instantly to verify a product’s authenticity.”
The IPM and the action plan help the WCO to prepare for operations against counterfeiters. In its operations to date, the WCO has been mostly targeting goods that pose a risk to public health and safety.
“These operations help us to detect new fraud techniques and provide insight into the types of products that are being counterfeited and their potential danger to consumers,” Bruford says.
“Through these operations, the WCO also hopes to mobilise all organisations—private and public—involved in the fight against counterfeiting, so that they may work closely with customs administrations around the world.”
Collaboration, it seems, is key to the WCO’s strategy. The WCO works with international organisations such as UNIFAB (Union des Fabricants), FESI (Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry), ANDEMA (the Asociación Nacional para la Defensa de la Marca), LEEM (Les Entreprises du Médicament) and CIPIC (Customs Intellectual Property Information Center).
“Such partnerships are largely based on two major areas of cooperation: the promotion of IPM and the sharing of information that will facilitate the training of customs officers,” says Bruford.
Rights owners are also encouraged to participate in the Counterfeiting and Piracy group, which was set up in 2009 to bring companies together to share their experiences, exchange views and learn from each other. Hot topics of discussion include the WCO tools to help rights owners, the role of customs in major sporting events (often targeted by ambush marketers and counterfeiters) and improving national IP regimes.
“Increased international cooperation is vital and should not remain a theoretical concept, but rather be put into practice. Countries need to ensure their legal frameworks are adequate, when it comes to exchanging actionable information and intelligence, for seizing shipments and investigating and prosecuting transnational offences. This is especially relevant when tackling Internet sales.”
For the WCO, it is clear where the gaps in the anti-counterfeiting efforts lie. While law enforcement agencies are making great strides against counterfeiting and piracy on the supply side, an equivalent demand-side strategy is needed.
A holistic approach is therefore required, Bruford says, focusing on educating enforcement officials (customs and police officers), intermediaries and customers; working with consumer activists; identifying state-specific issues; and collecting data to assess the magnitude of the problem and to quantify the grey market percentage across industry sectors and its economic impact on industries and government.
There are many intertwining constraints on the WCO. Most of these, such as lack of appropriate legislation and political will, fall firmly outside its remit. Loosening them depends largely on action from a higher authority, namely government, so the WCO must work with what it has. But it seemingly has a great understanding of the counterfeiting problem and feels it is making big strides against tackling illegitimate goods.
If one message is clear, it is that rights owners (if they haven’t already) should work with the WCO, with all the tools it possesses, ensuring officials on the front line are in the best possible shape to fight counterfeits. The more interest rights owners show, the easier their lives will be.
To find out more about the WCO visit www.wcoomd.org
