Anti-fraud policies, measures and results - Revenue

• Author: European Anti-Fraud Office (European Commission)
• Pages: 28-34

28

th Annual Report on the Protection of the European Union’s financial interests — Fight against fraud 

. Anti-fraud policies, measures

and results — Revenue

.. EU institutions’ anti-fraud measures — revenue

... Mutual administrative assistance

.... Anti-Frau d Information System ( AFIS)

AFIS (32) is an umbr ella term for a set of a nti-fraud IT ap plications o perated by the

European Com mission (OLAF ) which creat e contact s with the com petent aut horities in

the Member Sta tes, ensuring t imely and secu re exchange of fr aud-relate d information

between nati onal and EU competent ad ministrations. The AF IS Portal is a single and com -

mon infrastr ucture for the delivery of t he below-mentioned ser vices to nearly 8 800 reg -

istered end- users in more th an 1 900 com petent ser vices from Memb er States, par tner

third countr ies, international organisa tions, Commissio n depart ments and ot her EU insti-

tutions. T he AFIS project encompa sses two major areas: (i) mutual a ssistance in customs

matters; an d (ii) irregularities manage ment (covering several expendit ure sectors).

AFIS suppor ts mutual assistance in c ustoms matt ers with the s ecure real-ti me informa-

tion exchang e system VOCU (Virtu al Operations Coordinatio n Unit) used for joint customs

operations, se cure web mail (A FIS-Mail), dat abases like t he CIS+ (Custom s Information

System) and FIDE (C ustoms Investigation File s Identif‌ication Data base) and analysis tools

like A-TIS (Anti-Fr aud Transit Information System).

The Irregul arity Management Sys tem (IMS) is a secure elect ronic tool which helps Me mber

States in their o bligation to report irreg ularities detected in ag ricultural, struc tural, cohe-

sion and f‌isherie s funds, the A sylum, Migrat ion and Integ ration Fund (A MIF), the i nstru-

ment for f‌inancia l support for po lice cooperati on, preventin g and combati ng crime, and

crisis manageme nt (ISF) and th e Fund for Europea n Aid to the Mos t Deprived (FE AD) as

well as pre-acc ession aid. It supports t he management and analysis of ir regularities.

.... Joint customs operations ( JCOs)

In addition to it s investigations on cases of r evenue fraud, O LAF coord inates large -scale

JCOs involving EU a nd internatio nal operatio nal partn ers. JCOs are t argeted ac tions of

limited durat ion that aim to combat fraud a nd the smuggling of sensit ive goods in specif‌ic

areas at risk and /or on identif‌ied trade rou tes.

In 2018, OLAF p rovided support in 5 JCOs . The VOCU module of the AF IS was used for the

secure excha nge of information in four of the se JCOs. In addition to t he necessary supp ort

for the relevant c ountries to conduct coor dinated actions by means of OL AF’s permanent

technical in frastructure, IT an d communications tools, O LAF also provides st rategic anal-

ysis, administra tive and f‌inancial suppor t.

These operat ions: (i) help to improve the ef‌fec tiveness of cus toms service s in conducting

targeted c hecks at European level; (ii) id entify where the risks lie o n specif‌ic trade routes ;

(iii) protect th e public and leg itimate busine sses by prevent ing illegal prod ucts from e n-

tering the EU ; and (iv) safeguard EU public f‌ina nces.

Figure 4 presen ts a summary of these oper ations.

() Its legal basis is Re gulation /  as amended by Re gulation  /.