The World Customs Organization issued its annual report for 2013, which is related to activities of member countries, and the role of the customs in fighting trade in illegal products.

The report showed that the Kingdom’s customs has continued its progress in fighting fake products, commercial cheating and protecting intellectual property rights.

The Kingdom ranked second in the field of confiscating materials that violate intellectual property rights, with 4,153 confiscation operations during 2013. These included 88,221,337 copied items, which puts it in fourth place with regard to the number of confiscating items that violate intellectual property.

This number is double the confiscated items that were registered in the organization’s report for 2012, when confiscation operations reached 1,649 that included 2,553 million items.

The US customs ranked first this year with regard to confiscating items that violated intellectual property, with 7,554 operations, and ranked eighth in terms of confiscated items with 16,501,136 copied items.

On the basis of the World Customs Organization report, the Kingdom’s customs came second with regard to the number of confiscation cases, and fourth in the number of confiscated items. This doesn’t mean that the Kingdom is lagging behind in the number of confiscated items, in comparison with previous years.

The countries that took the first three places came from Africa. They carried out joint operations under the umbrella of WCO, such as the Biala operation for combating commercial cheating in African countries. This operation resulted in the confiscation of more than 1 billion items, according to the report.

As for drugs, the Kingdom’s customs ranked second in reporting the largest number of seizures of amphetamine with 977 kilograms. Saudi Customs came first in reporting the largest number of captagon with 7,902 kg, and second in reporting arms and ammunition cases with 374 confiscation operations.