Customs authorities are struggling to keep pace with global trade. Cross-border e-commerce is driving up daily shipment volumes, and de minimis rules (the thresholds below which low-value shipments can be exempted from duties and controls) are being continually rewritten around the world. Yet none of these changes fully keeps pace with current trade volumes.
Today, tens of millions of low-value parcels move through customs every day, and the number keeps climbing.
This gives criminal networks ample opportunity to exploit the gap, splitting shipments and altering documents to bypass controls.
Why Legacy Systems Can’t Keep Up
The reason those controls can’t keep up comes down to how they’re built. Most customs systems are now at least partly digital, but many still run on rigid, rule-based processes.
