Smuggling by Member's employee

An employee of 20 years standing used the customs bond of a Belgian ship agent to smuggle consignments of T-shirts of Chinese origin into the European Union. The T-shirts, which had arrived in Belgium from China, were incorrectly declared as having left the EU on ships belonging to the agent's principals. The employee also used his employer's customs bond in connection with cigarettes which had arrived from outside the EU, were transported from Belgium to Spain and on which the duty had allegedly been paid in Spain. The Spanish customs stamps were found to be forgeries. The fraud was discovered by the Belgian customs and both the ship agent and his employee have been held liable for customs duty and fines amounting to over US$1,000,000.