The debriefing meeting of Operation DEMETER VII was held via video conference on 10th December 2021. The Global Operation DEMETER VII, which was conducted to prevent the illegal shipments of hazardous waste regulated by Basel Convention and substances controlled by the Montreal Protocol since the first DEMETER I started from 2009. This year, medical waste in the context of COVID-19 was also one of the target for the operation following last year. While Operation DEMETER VII was carried out for a month, the WCO Secretariat, 7 Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices (RILOs), 87 Member states and 8 international organizations participated the operation.

 Anna Ewa KOBYŁECKA, who is the new technical officer, Environment Programme Manager of Compliance and Facilitation of WCO from this year, started the debriefing meeting with her welcoming remarks. Mr. Pranab Kumar Das, WCO Director of Compliance and Facilitation of the World Customs Organization, made the remarks at the beginning of a debriefing meeting. During the remarks, he mentioned the slogan “Customs blostering Recovery, Renewal and Resilience for a sustainable supply chain”, and highly celebrated the success of the operation Demeter VII. Next, Mr. Sun Zhijie, Director General of the Anti-Smuggling Bureau of China Customs, delivered the remarks. He thanked all participants for the successful completion of the operation and emphasized on the strengthening collaboration with Customs, police and environmental departments and other law enforcement agencies. Lastly, Mr.Young Kyong KIM, Deputy Head of RILO AP, gave statement about the significance and implication of Demeter VII and stressed the need to focus our capabilities on collaboration with member administrations to response exponential increase illegal waste and chemicals movement across the border.

 For the operation results and members’ feedback, Mr. SHI Chunwan, Intelligence Analyst of RILO AP and the staff of Operational Coordination Unit (OCU) of the operation, presented at the meeting. He introduced the overview and the results of the operation Demeter VII. He also shared analysis of the results and notable seizures and evaluation of the operation sent by the participants to reflect it on the next operation.

The last session of the debriefing meeting was discussion on operation Demeter VII and proposed format for operation Demeter VIII. Participants discuss the management of seizures from the HS code side, and outcomes of the operation, the definition of the wastes and technical support for the effective evaluation.