site.btaKapitan Andreevo Customs Officers Receive Acknowledgement for Their Work in Intellectual Property Protection

Customs officers at the Kapitan Andreevo border control checkpoint received acknowledgement for their work in the sphere of intellectual property protection, the National Customs Agency' regional press centre in Svilengrad reported Tuesday. At a meeting with Chief of Kapitan Andreevo Customs Georgi Gospodinov, the Regional Investigations Manager of US company Hewlett-Packard's (HP) Anti-Counterfeiting programme for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Paul Williamson, and the Sub Regional Investigations Manager for EMEA at HP, John Grant, expressed their gratitude for the counterfeit goods seized.

Grant said, as quoted in the press release, that they are impressed by the results achieved by the Bulgarian customs officers in the prevention of attempted import of intellectual property goods. The customs officers received this acknowledgment for a 2023 case where an inbound heavy duty truck was found transporting 11,200 empty plastic boxes and 500 cardboard boxes for toner cartridges with the HP logo as well as other undeclared goods.

Data show that last year, the Kapitan Andreevo customs officers seized 1,091,516 items with the logo of protected brands, most of them clothes, perfumes, sports shoes, bags, wallets, and belts. The counterfeit items seized this year number 220,000.

In November 2023, the Bulgarian customs officers' work was acknowledged at an official ceremony. They received letters of gratitude from an international company for the large number of counterfeit products seized.