A major customs operation has uncovered illicit movements of €18 million of cash potentially linked to money laundering, transnational criminal activities and terrorism financing.
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Operation BELENOS, led by the French Customs authorities, was carried out in 25 EU Member States.
Operation BELENOS resulted in the detection of around 400 cases of illicit accompanied and unaccompanied cash flows, mostly in air traffic (77,6%), road transport (18%), sea transport (3%) and postal shipments (0,6%).
In particular, customs authorities discovered at least 64 cases of potential linkages with money laundering for around €3 million, and 20 cases of potential linkages with sanctions against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine for around €180,000. In addition, 34 cases of amounts below €10,000 were suspected to be related to criminal activity.
In total, almost 420 natural persons were involved.
Other violations that customs authorities found were 6.5 kilograms of ecstasy, 4 kilograms of methamphetamine and €25,500 of counterfeit money.
More than 330 administrative or judicial investigations were launched based on the results achieved during operation BELENOS. Further enquiries into the matter are ongoing.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) played a key role in this joint customs operation, providing financial, analytical, technical and logistical support, including the use of the secured Virtual Operations Coordination Unit (VOCU) application to enable the secure exchange of information during the operation.
The European Commission's Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) shared its expertise on the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2018/1672 of 23 October 2018 on controls on cash entering or leaving the Union.
Europol performed crosschecks in its databases, allowing the identification of potential criminal links. Moreover, operation BELENOS led to increased cooperation between customs authorities, Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), tax and police authorities, and prosecutors.
Operation BELENOS aimed to control the movements of accompanied cash and unaccompanied cash (being sent by freight, post or courier), equal to or in excess of €10,000 entering or leaving the EU. ■