GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A man described by Swiss customs as a Russian, age about 20, was stopped in Presinge, Geneva, after he attempted to evade border checks by getting off a bus, then heading through fields with a large collection of jewels of “dubious origin”.
Border guards noticed the odd behaviour of the man who got off at bus stop Les Bornes, from a line C Malagnou – Monniaz bus.
The Swiss Customs Administration has a page in English with the basics of what you can and can’t do if you bring a car into the country, and what fines you could face if you don’t declare your car. It includes useful clarifications on exemptions for students and foreign workers.
Decomposing sardines from Brittany were destroyed by Swiss customs
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss customs officials in Geneva stepped up their checks of food items entering the country in May, and say they have uncovered serious problems in the transport of a number of food items.
Between June and September they seized a large number of shipments of supposedly fresh foods that were not kept at correct temperatures during transport, they say.
The non-exhaustive list:
1. 531 kg of meat and fish in sauces, headed for a shop, were stored at +18 °C rather than +5 °C to -8 °C. The goods were destroyed.
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Farm machinery might be cheaper right now in Germany, unless you forget to declare it at customs
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The BBC recently ran a programme on the rising incidence of agricultural theft, including stealing and exporting tractors but it didn’t take into account how tempting tractors priced in euros might be to Germans living in Switzerland.
Swiss news service ats reports that a German farmer bought a digger tractor worth more than CHF10,000 in his homeland, then put it on a trailer and drove it over the border at Effingen, on the A3, without declaring it.
Customs authorities caught up with him and the fines and taxes added several thousand francs to the cost of the new piece of equipment.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Customs officers in Geneva, at the Bardonnex post, had the slippery task Monday 23 May of destroying 2,470kg of melting margarine that was carried last week in a regular truck, under tarpaulin, from Portugal. The wholesaler in Geneva who ordered the goods told officials that he was planning to re-refrigerate it and supply the bakery business with it.
They pointed out that not only did he not have a license to import perishable foods, but that margarine left unrefrigerated for 90 hours in the heat poses a serious health risk. The quantity imported could have been used for 200,000 croissants.
Customs officials say that in the Mont Blanc tunnel fire in 1999 that cost several lives and closed the tunnel for months, margarine and flour fueled the fire. Margarine must normally be transports in a seal refrigerated truck.
The truck carrying the Portuguese load passed through several tunnels in France en route to Bardonnex.
Geneva customs officials destroy 24 Le Corbusier fake LC2,LC3 and LC4 chairs and sofas
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva consumers’ chance to buy cheap fake and illegal designer furniture took a beating 11 May. Twenty-four top designer name chairs and sofas would have had a shop sales value of CHF100,000 if they had been the real thing, but as fakes the copycat Le Corbusier and other name furniture would have been sold in Geneva for closer to CHF15,000 total.
Wednesday, in front of a crowd of journalists, Swiss Customs had a large bulldozer roll back and forth over the pile of confiscated goods until they were a flattened mass of cheap leather, twisted metal and plastic bits.
The counterfeit furniture was imported from China by what authorities say is a Geneva city centre well-known furniture boutique, whose name is not given because the case faces possible litigation. Nearly 80 percent of counterfeits that were seized in Switzerland in 2010 came from China.
The goods were seized 16 March by the Geneva Customs office on suspicion of fraud.
Italian license holder asked for fakes to be destroyed
Gianluca Armento of Cassina talks to reporters
Cassina, an Italian company which holds the exclusive worldwide licence to produce Le Corbusier furniture, was contacted by customs officials about the imports, and it asked that the fakes be destroyed. The importer also faces a fine, the amount of which has not yet been determined; if the shop is discovered to be a repeat offender, it risks being closed.
Customs officials and Cassina managers who were present Wednesday declined to say how much a fine might be: the number of copies, the history for importing fakes of the shop and other factors are part of the calculation.
The most likely scenario, says Cossina’s director, Gianluca Armento, is that his company and the importer will reach a private but legally binding agreement on the fine. The shop has not been caught importing fakes in the past, but is suspected of doing so, one customs officer told GenevaLunch.
Fake designer furniture a growing problem
The public destruction of the goods is designed to send a message to importers, who, according to Armento, are aware of what they are buying, and to consumers, who may not be. The problem of fake designer furniture is growing, with Armento and the customs officials who hosted the media event Wednesday agreeing that it is now an industry of at least €500 million a year.
Swiss customs officials are working closely with several industries, including furniture makers, to be able to better spot likely counterfeit products. Customs seized iimported bulk goods, not counting pharmaceuticals and precious metals, 2,741 times in 2010, compared to 470 in 2007, 1,176 in 2008 and 1,622 in 2009. The value of the goods (calculated as the value of the real product) was CHF4.7 million in 2009 and CHF7.21m in 2010.
Most of the fakes come from Italy, says Armento, but there is a new twist, and the Geneva seizure is a good example: Italian fake designer manufacturers are cutting their own costs by bringing in underpaid Chinese workers or having all but the finish on the furniture done in China. “They’re avoiding paying social costs in Italy and finding manufacturers in China who don’t pay them, so they’re really exploiting Chinese workers. They’ll do anything to lower costs. They just finish the pieces in Italy.”
Copies are illegal – forget what the salesman says
The designer copy business sparked debates in Italy for several years, but Michel Bachar, head of communications for the federal customs office, says there are clearcut intellectual property issues and consumers should not be fooled by sales people who say copies are legal.
They are rife on the Internet, but, Armento points out, it is impossible to judge quality online, and this is the consumer’s greatest protection: the licensed products use better quality materials and the hidden structure conforms to specifications set by the designer.
The 24 pieces of furniture included, for example, copies of the LC2 and LC3 chairs and sofas, and the LC4 chaise longue, designed by Le Corbusier working with Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, in 1928. They quickly became cult objects as emblems of modern design, and they were often copied.
Le Corbusier designated the license holder
Furniture designer Cassina opened its doors in Italy, near Milan, in 1927. In 1964 the “Cassina I Maestri” (Cassina Masters) collection was born and the company acquired the rights to products designed by Le Corbusier, Jeanneret and Perriand. Le Corbusier himself granted the worldwide exclusive license to Cassina in 1964.
Le Corbusier’s real name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret. The Swiss designer and architect was from the Swiss town of La-Chaux-de-Fonds, which will celebrate his 125th birthday in 2012.
Consumers should check the quality
Raymond Pfaff, country manager for Cassina, says that consumers shopping for the real thing need to know how to check for quality differences. In the case of the Le Corbusier pieces destroyed Wednesday, the shoddy workmanship of the curved metal joints and the and mediocre thin leather used made it quickly apparent that these were cheap copies.
The value of designer pieces to the owner, says Pfaff, lies not just in the look of the iconic pieces and what they represent in the history of design, but in the fine quality of the materials and their durability, their timelessness.
Diligent customs officials are catching some of the fakes, but it’s a daunting task, says Pfaff, with Italian fakes coming via truck into Switzerland, without any mention these are designer name pieces of furniture, and from The Netherlands if they are shipped to Europe from China.
The non-profit Stop Piracy organization was recognized by the Swiss government in 2009, and the group of 40 organizations that are members, has been working closely with Swiss Customs, training staff to spot counterfeit goods, among other projects.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss customs police have seized 150 litres, the equivalents of 75,000 doses of the date rape and popular club drug synthetic GHB, gamma hydroxybutyrate. The drug goes under different names, including liquid ecstasym and is called gouttes KO (GBL) in French. It can be slipped into drinks easily (a dose is 2 ml) and has no taste or smell to identify it.
Customs officials said Wednesday 4 May that they have seized the drugs over the past seven months, after stepping up efforts to intercept the product as it entered Switzerland. Virtually all of it is ordered online and shipped through regular channels, they note.
GBH is used in industry as part of paint and varnish preparations. Police warn that the market is completely “chaotic” when it comes to the strength and dosages available, with no control over the products, which are sold illegally, and they pose a serious health risk, particularly if mixed with alcohol.
Update 9 February / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Customs agents in Geneva seized some 200 contraband game consoles and 20 pieces of contraband gym equipment in December, the Swiss customs office said at its annual press day in Geneva. They showed off the equipment, mostly manufactured in China and headed for the Swiss market. The gear works, said one officer, but won’t for long.
The equipment was seized in a transit warehouse. It will now be destroyed.
Related story: swissinfo carries a lengthy article 9 February about Geneva as a target for French-based gangs
Swiss border guards and sniffer dog during a car check for drugs (photo, ©2011 Photopress /EZV/Peter Klaunzer)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva will have added a total of 77 border guards in two years by mid-2012, with the federal government approving the recruitment of an additional 24 Thursday 3 February. The new recruits will begin training in July 2011 and join the Geneva team in mid-2012.
Another group of recruits began training in January, reinforcing a group of 29 who were added to Geneva’s team in 2010.
Border guards and customs officers are both part of the Swiss Federal Customs Office, with the unarmed customs officers responsible for checking goods (trade). The border guards are responsible for checking for smuggling in and out of the country, including drug smuggling, but they also trace persons, vehicles and stolen property, search for document fraud, and work with police units that survey immigration and traffic.
Smuggling has taken a new turn since the Schengen Accord came into effect for Switzerland in 2008, allowing the free movement of people within the area, which includes most of the European Union and Switzerland. Many customs posts closed, without the need for regular passport checks, making it easier for citizens to cross borders, but also for smugglers and criminals. Geneva is an entry point for Italian and French criminals.
Update: 4 February
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Six men were arrested at Cornavin train station in Geneva by border patrol and customs agents when they were discovered during a routine check to be carrying 45 banned weapons, almost all of which were disguised as other items. A strange assortment of other items was also seized.
Mask and banned weapons confiscated - Photos SFCA
A bizarre stockpile of elements seized - Photo SFCA
The arrests took place at 15:00 Monday 31 January when the men, residents of Lyon, France, were leaving the Swiss sector in the station to head towards the French side.
Authorities say the haul included 42 tasers, 10 of which resembled flashlights. The other 32 looked like mobile phones.
Also confiscated: a cigarette lighter that hid a knife inside, an automatic knife, an expandable spring baton, hoods, handcuffs, laser pointers and several balaclavas, masks and handcuffs.
Police have not said why the group, age 20 to 26, was transporting the banned weapons but say they were probably not going to be put to good use.
The men admitted buying the items in Thailand where they are not banned.
After a month-long trip, the group traveled back to Europe via Zurich where they were able to pass customs inspection at the airport by keeping separate from each other.
Once in Geneva however, the group reassembled while going through customs which alerted authorities.
Two of the men had previous criminal records in France. The group was released, but the authorities say now that they have been identified it will be easy to keep track of them if they return to Switzerland.
There was no cocaine in this import
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -Magnetic Resonance Symmetry (MRS), the technique behind MRI scans done in hospitals could well be adopted by customs officials, if Swiss researchers in Lausanne and Geneva have their way. MRS has been shown by the group to be useful for scanning large cargoes and spotting cocaine that is being smuggled in wine bottles without having to open or disturb the cargo container.
A man in the UK reportedly died in 2009 as a result of unwittingly consuming cocaine-laced wine, but customs officials have a tough job spotting such bottles, or have had until now. They must carry out drug-panel tests on open bottles, but “first, contaminated cargo can be overlooked, since it is not possible to check a large number of samples,” writes Giulio Gambarota of EPFL in the Wiley Online Library.
“Second, cargo with expensive wine cannot be systematically sampled at a reasonable cost. Thus, a ‘non-invasive’ approach is of interest, as it would allow for an increase in sampling rate, without alterations to the cargo itself.”
The research work showed that “dissolved cocaine can be detected in intact wine bottles, on a standard clinical MR scanner” in about a minute, making it the option of choice, writes the lead author.
Happy and legal in Lausanne
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss customs officials say they will be sending a large bill plus fine, for an unspecified amount, to a woman in eastern Switzerland for illegally importing 12 dogs and selling them to unsuspecting buyers. The dogs did not have their rabies shots and the woman had not paid a value-added tax for imported animals. The anti-fraud unit alerted customs authorities after seeing her ads on the Internet for dogs of various breeds.
The federal customs office says its has caught 453 people bringing dogs into the country illegally since 2005, with the animals often in a “deplorable state”.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Motorists who fail to have a current year autoroute sticker correctly plastered to their cars risk a fine that will rise to CHF200. The upper house of parliament has approved a measure already passed by the lower house, that will increase fines from the current CHF100. The 6 percent of cars that travel on the highways without the sticker cost the government an estimated CHF20 million a year.
New Swiss Army knife © 2009 Photopress AG Victorinox
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss customs officials near Basel 3 August seized boxes with 558 kg of imported goods for Victorinox, one of Switzerland’s two Swiss Army knife manufacturers. Acting on a judicial complaint filed eight months ago by Thomas Minder, the boss of mouthwash maker Trybol, the customs at Muttenz, canton Basel State, held 116 boxes of bags, locks, and umbrellas made in China and Taiwan with the Victorinox logo.
Victorinox markets a number of goods that have nothing to do with pocket knives, including perfume. Production of many of these products are outsourced abroad. The pocket knives are all produced in Switzerland.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of suspect cases of illegal medicine imports rose by 92 percent in the first half of 2009, with half of them coming from Asia and the majority of those coming from India. “Erectile dysfunction” drugs were the most common, accounting for 24 percent of the total of 568 shipments confiscated by Swiss customs, with slimming drugs and muscle enhancers 14 and 12 percent respectively.
Slimming drugs are being illegally imported at a higher rate and Swissmedic, the body charged with testing products for customs, says that many of these do not contain what they say: vegetable-based products sometimes contain synthetics which can be dangerous and cause serious side effects.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss exports will be given the same treatment as EU member countries’ goods when they enter the European Union, the government announced 24 June. The agreement goes into effect 1 July 2009.
Geneva, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Two men and a woman in their sixties and seventies, were stopped by customs officers at the Geneva-Croix-de-Rozon border early in the morning, and arrested when it appeared that they have been using a series – up to 25 in one case – of false documents to commit several crimes in Europe, including forgery, false documents and fraud. The new Schengen SIS shared identification system, in use at the border since August 2008, has allowed border guards to pick up 256 people sought by police within the Schengen area.
Terminal 10, Geneva's Cointrin airport (GVA)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cointrin Airport won’t look the same to you Sunday if you’re fliying to or from Britain or Ireland or any other non-Schengen country. Swiss airports have been working with the European Union for some months to bring security systems into line, the last step in Switzerland dropping routine border controls to allow the free movement of people within the Schengen Area, to which Switzerland belongs.
Passport controls go, customs checks remain
Land border controls ended in 2008, but airports caused a problem, in part because of the large amount of traffic between Switzerland and two EU countries that are not part of the Schengen area, the UK and Ireland.
Food supplements? Medicine?
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland saw a 75% increase during 2008 in the number of potentially illegal medicines reported by Swiss customs to Swissmedic, the body which authorizes and supervises therapeutic products. Eighty-seven percent of the products reviewed were destroyed after they were analyzed because they did not conform to Swiss law, but Swissmedic points out that in half the samples tested, the products did not contain what they claimed.
Bern, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Travel on a train in Valais or Ticino and you should not be asked by a customs officer to show your goods – a situation that will soon change. Switzerland became part of the Schengen Area 12 December, which allows travelers to enter and leave Switzerland without routine passport checks. Customs officers continue to check goods, however, and part of this work involves running checks on international trains that pass through Switzerland, a job border guards have done since 2002 inside cantons with international borders.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – It’s not every day that customs officials pull someone over and find several Pablo Picasso sketches in a bag.
A “traveller” whose details are not being shared by customs was pulled out of the “nothing to declare” line at Zurich Airport and asked to open a bag. There sat 14 sketches, made during May and June 1971 by Picasso.
