The 19^th Counterfeiting and Piracy (CAP) Group Meeting was held in three phases from 22 October to 15 December 2022. The first phase took place from 22 October to 14 November 2022 using the WCO CLiKC! platform Mr. Olo sib Pale of Côte d'Ivoire was elected as Chairperson of the meeting with support expressed by several members of the WCO CAP Group.

The Second phase was held in a hybrid format on 16 and 17 November 2022. The meeting started with the opening remarks of Mr. Stefan Kirsch, WCO Deputy Director of Compliance and Enforcement followed by welcoming remarks of Mr. Pranab Kumar Das, Director of the WCO Compliance and Facilitation Directorate.

During the second phase, the revised Terms of Reference (ToR) were approved after continuing discussion from the first phase to submit it to the Permanent Technical Committee (PTC) and the Council for final approval. The meeting moved to the next agenda related to endorsement of the draft Compendium titled “Case Study and Risk Indicators to Identify IPR, Hearth and Safety Infringing Goods Related to E-Commerce” as a living document. The Secretariat pointed out that a majority of seizure cases of Operation STOP I and STOP II were linked to e-commerce. It prompted the Secretariat to send a survey to members to identify current trends resulting in the launch of this document in the hope that it would help frontline officers to better understand the threat of counterfeit goods infringing IPR transacted via e-commerce.

Also, the meeting endorsed the draft WCO practical Guidelines on “Environmentally Safe Storage and Destruction of Intellectual Property Infringing Goods”. There was a session to take note of activities carried out by the WCO secretariat and members. The Secretariat reported the implementation of several activities aiming at the achievement of specialized objectives such as efforts to heighten the awareness of IPR, capacity building, and cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO). It was announced that Operation STOP III would be scheduled in 2023 for all types of goods more focusing on e-commerce.

RILO AP gave a presentation introducing its supportive activities for the Operation STOP series and shared remarkable seizure cases reported by members in the AP region. Also, RILO AP enunciated its plan to support the operation as previous operations.