Dubai Customs scored the highest rate in exchanging customs information and news as well as warnings in the Middle East. In a new accomplishment representing the Department’s keenness to reinforcing international cooperation against customs offenses, Dubai Customs reported 62 cases which resulted in several seizures in different locations around the world.
Mr. Khalid Abdul Aziz Al Arj, Director of Regional Intelligence Liaison Office in the Middle East headquartered in Riyadh announced the achievement and commended the efforts made by Dubai Customs RILO office.
During the 14th annual meeting of RILO Middle East with local offices of country members which took place at Abu Dhabi on October 26th- 27th, 2010, Mr. Al Arj stressed the great role Dubai Customs played in providing the regional office with critical information that contributed to performing numerous seizures internationally.
Mr. Abdulla Al Shaer, Manager of Customs Intelligence Department at Dubai Customs said that the Department, under the directives and continuous supervision of H.E. Ahmed Butti Ahmed, Dubai Customs Director General, is keen on increasing interaction between the local offices and exchanging information quickly with the WCO RILO to ensure analyzing the data and benefiting from it in combating customs offenses and following them up locally and internationally besides making use of the international expertise in developing inspection systems and training inspectors.
During the meeting, Mr. Yaqoob Al Ali, RILO Manager at Dubai Customs demonstrated the office’s reports and activities for 2009-2010 and the most recent seizures of this year. In addition, he gave a presentation on the counterfeited medicine seizure Dubai Customs performed in the first half of 2010 which was estimated to 7 million tablets of counterfeited medicine.
Participants of the meeting discussed methods of using the combating network by the country members and analyzing the information as well as mechanism of reviving RILO activities in the Middle East and taking part in the WCO or the RILO projects. They also looked into issues related to arranging joint operations in the region and the capacity building and training needs of the regional office and the member offices.
WCO’s RILO is a regional centre for collecting, analyzing and supplementing data as well as disseminating information on trends, modus operandi, routes and significant cases of fraud. There are several liaison offices around the world and RILO Middle East office comprises of ten countries of the GCC including the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar besides each of Jordan, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. The RILO network currently comprises as well 11 liaison Offices in the world