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OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, was set up on 1 June 1999 to replace EUCLAF, the

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Unit for Coordination of Fraud Prevention, created in 1988 as part of the Secretariat

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General of the Commission.

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In creating OLAF, the European institutions wanted to provide themselves with an instrument

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for fighting trans-border economic and financial crime, fraud and corruption that harms community

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interests, in particular Europe's public finances.

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With these first-hand accounts from its main operational partners in the fight against

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fraud and cross-border crime, OLAF wishes to demonstrate to the people of Europe the

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benefits of this cooperation.

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This video on OLAF and international cooperation has been produced in close cooperation with

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the members of OLAF's Anti-Fraud Communicators Network, which is made up of public relations

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and communication officials in OLAF and in the national departments, which are its principal

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partners in the member states and the candidate countries.

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It is intended to provide the public with better information about the anti-fraud cooperation

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that exists between community institutions and national departments.

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The Customs Agency in Bulgaria is under the control of the Ministry of Finance.

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It coordinates and organizes the application of customs tariffs, the collection of customs

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duty and action against customs offenses.

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I am very pleased to be invited in OLAF training seminars, once in Bucharest and now in Brussels.

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And I hope that in the future the collaboration between the Bulgarian Customs Agency and the

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OLAF communication networks will be very fruitful.

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The Financial Intelligence Agency is an autonomous department within the Ministry of Finance,

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a legal entity in the Budget Department with its headquarters in Sofia.

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It is a public body which was created in 1998 with the aim of organizing measures to prevent

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the Bulgarian financial system being used for money laundering.

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Our priority is to cooperate closely with OLAF.

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We handle cases together and have conducted joint operations against cigarette smuggling

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and drug trafficking, which have a major fiscal impact in the European Union.

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Since illicit trade costs the European Union budget a great deal of money, our colleagues

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in OLAF estimate that they have recovered tens of millions of euros in this way.

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In 2001, the Belgium Customs and Excise Administration dealt with 1,496 requests for exchanges of

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information from other Member States and made 1,625 requests itself.

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These exchanges of information produced tangible results.