In order to expand the capabilities of the Customs Administration of the State Revenue Service (SRS) to ensure effective control, preventing the movement of prohibited and dangerous substances across the external border of the European Union (EU), promoting public safety and the protection of the EU single market, the EU Recovery Fund project “Customs Laboratory Capacities” has been implemented in Latvia strengthening’.
The Latvian customs service continuously improves control methods and introduces the latest innovative technologies. During the implementation of the project, SRS has purchased modern equipment – RAMAN spectrometers, which allow for prompt identification of unknown substances. With the new equipment, customs officials can identify various chemical substances, including prohibited and dangerous substances, without opening the package. It provides an opportunity to quickly and efficiently inspect mail and cargo without coming into direct contact with potentially dangerous substances. At the same time, the possibility of unintentionally causing losses to honest traders will decrease, as there is no need to open the special packaging for chemicals to make sure that they actually correspond to the goods specified in the declarations.
The volume of commercial and non-commercial international shipments continues to grow, and during the control process, customs officials often find suspicious shipments with substances for which insufficient information is provided in the documents or whose packages are not properly labeled.
Now, customs officials can use the portable RAMAN spectrometer “Agilent Resolve” placed at the disposal of the airport customs control point to check such shipments. In order to effectively use the equipment in the process of customs control of mail, specialized training was also provided for the officials of the airport customs control point during the implementation of the project.
The portable device can also be used at other customs control points if there is a need to quickly identify unknown chemical substances in the cargo.
If necessary, customs officials send chemical substances for identification to the Customs laboratory, where the new stationary RAMAN spectrometer “i-Raman Pro 785H” is installed, and other analytical equipment with auxiliary equipment is available. After the delivery of the new equipment, the officials of the Customs laboratory supplemented their professional knowledge by participating in specialized training and learning the nuances of using the RAMAN spectrometer, selecting parameters, recording and analyzing spectra, usable databases.
Using the new spectrometer, 26 product samples were tested in the Customs laboratory.
The purchase of a portable and stationary RAMAN spectrometer was carried out and the training of customs officials was provided by implementing the EU Recovery Fund Component 6 “Rule of Law” reform and the investment direction “Mitigating the shadow economy for the promotion of fair business” investment project “Strengthening the capacity of the customs laboratory”. The total financing of the project is 158,566.87 euros, including 131,047 euros – financing from the Recovery Fund and 27,519.87 euros – financing from the state budget.
