Nearly €760 million worth of goods seized by EU customs in 2019

Fake goods with a retail value of over €760 million were seized at the EU’S external borders in 2019, according to a new report published by the European Commission.

While this figure represents a €20 million increase in value compared to 2018, the number of detentions increased by over 30 percent in the same period. This annual report gives an overview of the work carried out by EU customs officials – responsible for the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) – at the EU’S external borders.

Overall, in 2019, Member State customs authorities made over 90,000 seizures of goods that infringed on intellectual property rights, consisting of almost 41 million individual items (an increase of 53 percent compared to the previous year).