On Thursday, 23 September, the Saeima adopted in the final reading amendments to the Postal Law and the related draft laws in order to execute tighter control of suspicious postal items, especially items containing narcotic drugs, and to extend the capacity of the State Revenue Service (SRS) to carry out more effective control of such items.
As stated in the summary of the Draft Law, the aim of the amendments is to extend the rights of the customs authority to execute cross-border postal item checks and to remove, store and destroy suspicious postal items.
The amendments also provide a definition of suspicious postal items. The Draft Law defines suspicious postal items as items suspected to contain narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, the materials required for their production (precursors), and new psychoactive substances or products containing such substances.
Postal operators will be obligated to inform both the State Police and the SRS in case of suspected sending of illegal substances and goods.
According to the amendments, upon identification of suspicious postal items, customs officials performing cross-border postal item checks will be obligated to inform the respective postal operator about the need to stop the item from being sent to the addressee. The mail operator will be obligated to stop the item from being sent to the addressee and to immediately hand over the item to the customs official.
Today, the Saeima also adopted in the final reading the related amendments to the Law On the State Revenue Service and an amendment to the Customs Law to expand the competence of tax administration and customs authorities in the checking, removal, storage and destruction of suspicious postal items.
The amendments stipulate that officials of the National Customs Board of the SRS will send an invitation to the address indicated on the suspicious postal package, summoning the addressee to arrive at the SRS and collect the item within 30 days. Upon failure to do so, the package will be destroyed.
The number of criminal procedures involving cross-border postal items is rapidly increasing. The postal items contain various types of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. The most common amount of substances found in the postal items is up to 10 grams. The authors of the Draft Law note that the majority of postal items containing narcotic drugs are sent to Latvia from the Netherlands, some have also been sent from Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, and Germany.
The current Law prohibits the mailing of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, materials of pornographic or erotic nature describing or depicting sexual abuse of children, sexual acts of human beings involving animals, necrophilia, or violence of pornographic nature. It is also prohibited to mail articles or substances, the importation or circulation of which is prohibited in the country of destination or which may soil or damage other postal items or postal equipment due to their nature or packaging.
The Law also prohibits mailing explosive, flammable, radioactive, perishable biological substances and infectious substances, as well as money, coins, banknotes, any type of securities, and animals.
Saeima Press Service