Introduction
Customs administrations are on the frontline to protect societies against criminal acts in cross-border trade and logistics. These agencies benefit from technologies and solutions developed by firms in the security sector, assisting them in their daily tasks of detecting illicit trade and illegal cargo, including narcotics, weapons, and counterfeit goods. Due to the vast amount of cross-border transactions – just alone in the European Union there are over 500 declarations submitted per minute (European Commission, n.d.-b) - only a small percentage of all shipments can be physically inspected. Customs relies on modern technologies including container scanners, radiation detection devices, and risk management software, among many others. Unfortunately, many gaps exist today in technical performances of such solutions, particularly when it comes to “too many false-positives and too many false-negatives”. False-positive means that many shipments pointed by technologies as high risk are actually fully licit; while false-negative means that shipments supposed to be licit are actually illicit, after all. Further on failing to identify illegal shipments: a study performed by Oxford Economics (2018) indicated that “only 11% of illicit trade is seized, on average, across Europe […] even the most effective border enforcement authorities cannot seize more than a small share, perhaps a quarter at most, of the illicit goods crossing their borders”. All in all, one can well state that customs administrations are increasingly needing more innovative products, services and processes in order to tackle the fast-changing pace of national and transnational criminal activities.[...]
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