The following is excerpted from a 14 February 2013 news release by the World Customs Organization.
At the invitation of Executive Director Yury Fedotov of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya of the WCO spoke at the opening session of the Conference on the Illicit Trafficking of Fraudulent Medicines, which was held at the Vienna International Centre on 14 February 2013. Heads of international and national organizations, as well as non-governmental organizations, active in the fight against fraudulent medicines were invited to explore this form of trafficking from an organized crime point of view.
Secretary General Mikuriya detailed the challenges that confront Customs, as the first line of defence at borders, in their efforts to protect citizens from the health and safety risks posed by fake medicines. He mentioned eight major challenges, namely the lack of consumer awareness, insufficient knowledge by frontline Customs officers, not enough cooperation with the private sector, the need for better coordination with other agencies, inadequate legal frameworks to empower Customs, unregulated free trade zones, the growing number of small parcels as a result of Internet trade, and the unsatisfactory level of political will.
This release is available in its entirety at:
http://www.wcoomd.org/en/media/newsroom/2013/february/international-partnership-in-the-fight-against-the-trafficking-of-fraudulent-medicines.aspx