Customs officers from the Sofia Customs Territorial Directorate prevented an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of undeclared food supplements and gels through the "Kalotina" Customs checkpoint.
During a routine X-ray control on the "Incoming trucks" route at the "Kalotina" Customs checkpoint, a truck traveling under documents from Croatia to Bulgaria was scanned. During the scanning process, suspicious areas were identified, and subsequently, during the physical inspection, customs officers established a discrepancy between the items declared as cosmetic products and the actual transported goods.
After a full inventory and count lasting several days, customs inspectors identified a total of 44,685 packages of undeclared food supplements (in the form of capsules and drops) and various types of gels. Among the detained items, products with trade names suggesting their purpose for controlling appetite and weight, supplements claiming to improve general tone, vision and the functioning of the cardiovascular system, as well as gels for joint and muscle pain, supporting recovery after exertion, predominated.
The detained goods, which were not reflected in the documents submitted to the customs authorities, were detained and an act of establishing an administrative violation was drawn up for smuggling. A laboratory analysis of the discovered food supplements and gels is pending, as well as an assessment of whether they are registered for legal use in our country.
Such food supplements and gels are often sold online and are advertised as promising quick and long-lasting effects. At the same time, consumers do not always have sufficient information about their content, and practice shows that in such products, discrepancies are often found between the declared composition and the actual ingredients used.