Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300
- 308)
THURSDAY 8 JULY 2004
MR MARK
FUCHTER AND
MR CHARLES
MACKAY
Q300 Chairman: Does your team also
deal with illegal bush meat, or is that separate?
Mr Mackay: To a certain degree
we do, in terms of whether it is covered by CITES or not; so that
is our main issue. We have had some dealings with illegal bush
meat in terms of CITES species being involved, but that is as
far as we take it.
Mr Fuchter: Customs have been
given separate resources to deal with a separate piece of law
(I am sounding awfully like a civil servant!) and we have put
new teams in Customs to address all products of animal origin
and foodstuffs under those separate regulations. There is an overlap
because bush meat, which is covered by those regulations, obviously
includes some endangered species. Charles's team will major on
endangered species and dealing with intelligence there, but we
have other officers where the strategy is slightly different—it
is really to take the stuff out; we do not want the stuff coming
through our controls, so we look for surrenders. We encourage
people to surrender the stuff; we have announcements on the planes
where we can, and we are far more active, for example with sniffer
dogs being introduced.
Q301 Chairman: How many sniffer dogs
are there now?
Mr Fuchter: Six, and we are looking
to put in another four during this financial year.
Q302 Chairman: It is hardly a pack!
Mr Fuchter: It is very effective,
because all the bags come through at one place together. The beauty
of a dog compared to a human is that they can whiz through quite
quickly.
Q303 Paul Flynn: I am slightly confused
on what you say about the role of Defra and the NWCIU to do risk
assessments to inform your targeting. What then was the intelligence
research team focused on?
Mr Fuchter: In our money, it would
be operational intelligence, which would be case-specific about
person X or company Y; but it would also be interfacing with the
police, and it may be about saying "we are getting a lot
of intelligence about a certain trend" and making sure that
NWCIU know that. It is the lower level of intelligence rather
than at the more strategic level.
Q304 Paul Flynn: Are you suggesting
the role of the Customs intelligence research team is to progress
and disseminate intelligence, working closely with CITES and police
and so on?
Mr Fuchter: Yes.
Q305 Paul Flynn: But you then said
earlier in the memorandum that you have to rely on your PAW partners,
particularly Defra, to do risk assessments of the scale of wildlife
crimes, which informs your target. Can you explain the capabilities?
Mr Fuchter: Determining the strategic
picture, in terms of strategic threat, is something for Defra—we
do have our own strategic analysts who look at our primary responsibilities—alcohol,
tobacco—but we do not deploy those in areas where the lead
is taken by another department, mainly because we are not experts
in this area. Every time I listen to the two Martins, I realise
how little I know about this area. They are much more specialised.
They are accountable for the Government's overall response, or
advising ministers on it, and they know the risks and threats
better than we do, and know the risk and threat assessments to
commission. We are reluctant to expend our own strategic assessment
resources on that work. That work would lead to a strategy that
would have resources identified and have outcomes identified.
That is the sort of approach that I am talking about. We should
be driven ideally by a strategy that gets us there. Underneath
that, Customs is dealing with the information on seizures that
we find. We are learning from those seizures. We are working at
an operational level, which is very specific, looking at the trends
from seizures and cases, and referring that back. It has to be
a two-way flow. It has to go back up the chain to inform the strategic
picture. Are there many like Mr Humphrey or is there just one?
Equally, we need something from the top that says, "our priorities
are to do something slightly different". If Defra said, "we
want far less effort at the frontier and far more on, say, Operation
Artemis"—although I know that is unrealistic, we would
expect as the enforcement authority at the frontier to be guided
by that approach.
Q306 Paul Flynn: Do you think the
number of seizures is an accurate way of measuring the amount
of traffic coming through?
Mr Fuchter: No, I agree with the
way you assessed it earlier. Seizures tell you just one part of
the picture.
Q307 Sue Doughty: I take your point
that a lot of what you do is intelligence-driven, but is the work
that you are doing with other customs organisations internationally
to prevent the trade in CITES species part of the intelligence
you are using?
Mr Mackay: Unfortunately, with
CITES it is a strange one when it comes to who enforces it because
in a lot of countries it is not customs that enforce CITES; it
will be other government departments, mainly the police. We have
ourselves built up some very good contacts in quite a few countries,
but there are big gaps, and that has been recognised at the international
level inside the secretariat. We had an experts' meeting in Washington
specifically about issues like co-operation between enforcement
authorities around the world and the fact that in a lot of cases
there were no contacts to be made, and we could not find out who
was responsible in certain countries; so they are trying to address
that at the next conference of the parties with a resolution.
On a day-to-day basis we have quite a good working relationship.
Where we are finding them in transit, we are informing the end
country and their authorities that we have an issue and ask if
they want to take it on, or whether they want us to take it where
we are. We have what we call a controlled delivery situation therefore,
and we are able to pass it on to them, and they can take action
at their end. It is not as good as it should be, and hopefully
that will be addressed at the conference.
Q308 Sue Doughty: I take on board
what you say. Have you had any successes? Are there any areas
where you can say that this international working has led to a
drop in a particular trade or activity?
Mr Mackay: I am not sure about
a drop in the trade, but I can say that we have had success for
instance in controlled delivery, for example one that we did to
China where we had no contact. There is the World Custom Organisation
fortunately, which was able to give us a contact in China and
we were able to effect a very good controlled delivery, in which
they took out the main people involved in China. That was a success
in itself. I cannot tell you that that is going to reduce the
amount of ivory smuggled, only that that particular person will
not be involved.
Chairman: The clock strikes 12! We have
reached the end of our questions. We are extremely grateful to
you for your time. Thank you very much indeed.
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