While many traded goods can be correctly identified and classified by simple visual inspection or documentation review, some require chemical or scientific testing to ascertain their identity and enable their correct classification. Products as diverse as acetaminophen (a pharmaceutical product),...
At the end of July 1882, a strange package arrived at the Madrid Customs laboratory which was under the direction of Gabriel de la Puerta-Ródenas, a Spanish chemist who lived from 1839-1908. Destined for Spain’s Prime Minister, the Spanish authorities, fearing for the Prime Minister’s life, ...
On 18 February 2015, the General Directorate of Customs (DGA) of the Dominican Republic officially opened a modern scientific laboratory occupying a site measuring 1,217 square metres in the city of Santo Domingo. The facility has an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), an emergency generator, kit...
In June 2015, when the partially decomposed body of an unidentified little girl, known as Baby Doe, was found in a trash bag on a beach on Deer Island in Boston Harbour, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States (US) contacted US...
In one word: Yes! At least, that is the experience of the Danish Customs and Tax Administration (SKAT). There are, of course, issues to be considered and addressed before taking the decision to use a private laboratory as a Customs laboratory, but once the issues have been addressed, it is entire...
In late December 2010, the news broke about a Seattle court case involving counterfeit honey. A 70-year old Bellevue, Washington man, Chung Po Liu, had been sentenced to a year and a day in prison and was ordered to pay 400,000 US dollars (USD) in restitution for importing falsely declared Chines...
Changing strategies
Then the Chinese exporters changed their strategy. This time the shipments were sent from China, but they weren’t declared as honey. The shipping documents labelled the cargo as sugar syrup. “They ...
A basic need of any law enforcement agency is to be able to positively identify controlled substances in seized drug samples, as well the purity of the drug, which will support legal proceedings and, hopefully, result in successful convictions. Research aimed at shedding light on the chemical pro...
The Czech Customs laboratory celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023. Its history goes back to the creation of Czechoslovakia, after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918 at the end of World War I.
First known as the Chemical and Technical Testing Laboratory, it...
Staff
Today, CTL employs more than 50 specialists and technicians. Customs laboratories differ from other laboratories in that they have to analyse all types of products, mainly for the purposes of Customs classification,...
Customs administrations have a full array of tools and technologies at their disposal to test material and substances – both in the field and in their labs. These tools all have benefits and limitations. This article introduces an innovation which enables field o...
IMS is most familiar to the air traveling community when airport security, such as the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), pulls travellers aside to check their bags for explosives using a trace explosives-detection device (TEDD). When airport security use a TEDD, they are looking ...