National Customs Agency

Customs officers from the Sofia Customs Directorate seized 3 579 ‘branded’ goods in a Bulgarian-registered lorry carrying printing paper.

In the area of a village in the municipality of Hadjidimovo, officials from the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Department and the Drug Trafficking Department at the Sofia Customs Directorate stopped a lorry driven by a Bulgarian citizen for inspection. According to the documents presented by the driver, he was transporting pallets of printing paper from Bulgaria to Greece. Due to doubts in the inspection team about the presence of undocumented goods, the vehicle was accompanied to the Gotse Delchev Customs Office for a thorough customs check.

In the course of the inspection, the inspectors found in the cargo, in addition to the paper, 2 pallets with boxes containing goods bearing protected trademarks.

A total of 3 483 garments were identified - T-shirts, shorts, sports teams of football teams, as well as 96 perfume packs - all with logos of world-famous brands.

‘Mark’ goods were detained due to reasonable suspicions of infringement of Regulation (EU) №608/2013 on the protection of intellectual property rights and the Trademarks and Geographical Indications Act. The owners of the respective trademarks will be notified of the case.

The check is part of the Customs Agency’s compensatory measures in relation to the lifting of border controls at the EU’s internal borders following Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen area as a full member.