site.btaFinance Minister: At Least Four Cases of Dual-Use Goods Detected at Kapitan Andreevo in a Month

For the last month, customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing have detected at least four cases of trafficking in dual-use goods, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev told journalists at the checkpoint. He added that the cases detected in the last month were mainly of electronic components to Iran.   

Minister Vassilev was inspecting the border crossing with Turkiye on Tuesday along with European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union, Mairead McGuinness.

The main topic of the government-level talks with McGuinness was the import-export of dual-use goods to Russia via third countries.

According to Minister Vassilev, sanctions are being enforced on a number of alerts from Europe about the movement of dual-use goods, and Kapitan Andreevo is one of the main transport corridors. Over the past few years, large amounts of illicitly transferred money has been detected through the checkpoint, with more than BGN 26 million seized this year alone.

There should be a much better exchange of information at the European level so that even if the documents of the goods are accurate, their entire traffic can be traced from start to finish, Vassilev noted. Because if the papers are in order, there is no way the goods can be stopped at the border itself, he explained.