Border guards, customs officers, and police across Europe have seized more than 1.7 million counterfeit and undeclared items, with an estimated value of EUR 17.4 million, during Joint Action Days (JAD) Pirates 4, a Frontex-led international operation targeting the criminal networks behind counterfeit goods, customs fraud, and illicit cross-border trade.
The operation ran from 15 to 26 June 2026 at land border crossings, ports, airports and logistics hubs across the continent. Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, led the action together with Bulgaria and Europol, supporting the national authorities carrying out checks on the ground.
Authorities from 12 EU Member States, together with Serbia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, took part. Europol, Interpol, and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) supported the operation.
The counterfeit products seized ranged from everyday consumer goods, such as clothing, footwear, toys, cosmetics, perfumes, jewellery, watches, and mobile phones, to products that can place people’s health and safety at risk, including pharmaceuticals, e-cigarettes, tobacco products, electronics, printer cartridges, and vehicle parts.
Officers also intercepted large quantities of undeclared and illicit goods, including fuel, cigarettes, gold, cash, construction materials, food products, stolen vehicles, firearms and ammunition, exotic wildlife, and cultural artefacts.
- Around 1.73 million items seized in total, worth more than EUR 17.4 million
- More than 1.35 million counterfeit products, worth EUR 12.2 million
- Undeclared and illicit goods worth more than EUR 5.2 million
- 51 refusals of entry
- 10 fraudulent travel documents detected
- 9 people found to have overstayed their permitted stay in the EU
“Counterfeit trade is not a victimless crime. It finances organised criminal networks, undermines legitimate businesses, deceives consumers, and can pose serious health and safety risks. Joint Action Days Pirates 4 demonstrate how European operational cooperation at the external borders helps disrupt these criminal networks before dangerous products reach the EU market,” said Lars Gerdes, Frontex Deputy Executive Director for Operations.
Counterfeit goods remain one of the most profitable forms of organised cross-border crime. Findings from previous editions of JAD Pirates show that criminal networks move illicit goods into the European Union through major land border crossings, container ports, airports, and logistics hubs, particularly in the Balkans and around the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
The operation also supported wider European efforts against migrant smuggling, document fraud, and undeclared cash movements.
JAD Pirates 4 took place under the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT), the framework through which EU countries and agencies jointly tackle serious and organised crime. As Action Leader of the EMPACT operational action on intellectual property crime, Frontex coordinated the exchange of operational information, deployed officers from its Standing Corps, the EU’s first uniformed service, and ran the operation’s coordination centre at its headquarters in Warsaw.
Contact
Email: press@frontex.europa.eu
