Counterfeit goods, illicit medical products, protected plants and weapon components intersect with postal and express delivery networks. The WCO’s Illicit Trade Report 2025 shows why parcel risk management needs to connect information across enforcement priorities.
The WCO’s Illicit Trade Report 2025 brings together data reported by 170 Customs administrations to examine how illicit goods move across borders and how they are detected. By connecting findings from individual controls, it helps identify trafficking patterns that extend beyond any one country.
A case from Guatemala illustrates the work behind those findings. During a routine control at an express courier facility, Customs intercepted a shipment containing 800 phone chargers addressed to an individual recipient. An officer suspected that the products were not authentic and consulted the rights holder, who confirmed an intellectual property infringement. The goods were seized and referred to the competent authorities for further investigation.
The case illustrates how seemingly ordinary consumer goods moving through express delivery networks can raise intellectual property concerns. Detecting the infringement required more than identifying a suspicious shipment: it depended on the officer’s judgement, physical examination and confirmation from the rights holder.
Across the World Customs Organization’s Illicit Trade Report 2025, postal and express networks appear repeatedly in cases involving very different goods. The operational challenge extends beyond detecting a particular prohibited product: Customs must recognise multiple types of risk within delivery systems serving e-commerce.
Drawing on cases and findings from the WCO’s Illicit Trade Report 2025, this article examines how postal and express delivery networks are used to move illicit goods. These examples help explain the role of parcels across different forms of illicit trade and the challenges Customs faces in identifying and responding to these risks.
What the headline figure actually means
E-commerce was involved in 44.8% of all cases recorded across the report. Its presence spans several enforcement areas, including intellectual property rights, medical products, drugs, environmental crime and security. That figure needs a precise reading. It does not mean that 44.8% of parcels contain illicit goods, or that the same proportion of global illicit trade moves through e-commerce. It describes the share of reported enforcement cases associated with e-commerce.
The report draws primarily on the Customs Enforcement Network (CEN), the WCO’s database of seizure and offence records submitted voluntarily by Customs administrations. Its value lies in bringing individual enforcement events into a shared intelligence resource: information from an interception in one country can help Customs elsewhere identify trafficking patterns, assess risks and plan controls. Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices support this process by validating submissions and developing regional intelligence products.
The findings nevertheless depend on what administrations detect and report. Differences in enforcement capacity, participation and reporting practices affect which activities become visible in the data. The figures therefore describe recorded enforcement activity, rather than the full scale of global illicit trade.
Behind every online purchase is a physical delivery network. The enforcement challenge arises when illicit traders exploit those networks to move prohibited or non-compliant goods. For Customs, identifying these consignments requires connecting information about the transaction, the goods and their route, so that controls can target risk while legitimate deliveries keep moving.
Where Customs intercepts illicit parcels
Many postal and express consignments pass through facilities located within airports. This matters when interpreting the WCO’s figures: a case recorded at an airport may involve a parcel moving through a postal or courier network.
In 2025, airports accounted for 23,855 cases involving intellectual property rights (IPR) infringements, approximately 67% of all IPR cases in the report. Of those airport cases, 76% involved e-commerce. The airport figures therefore capture a substantial number of interceptions associated with online purchases.
The report also notes that Customs administrations may classify the location of an interception differently. A parcel seized at a mail centre inside an airport may be recorded under either “airport” or “mail centre”. These categories therefore need to be read together to understand where parcel controls take place
The figures also show differences between delivery channels. In 2025, Customs reported 15,006 cases involving intellectual property infringements in express courier shipments, up 41% from 2024. Cases involving regular mail fell by 28%, to 8,682. This does not necessarily mean that illicit goods shifted from one channel to the other: the figures reflect what Customs detected and reported. To understand the broader pattern, both channels need to be considered together, including parcels intercepted at airport facilities.
The same delivery networks carry different risks
Postal and express networks appear in cases involving goods as different as counterfeit products, protected plants and weapon components. Each presents a different challenge for the officers examining the shipment.
E-commerce was involved in 68.2% of reported cases concerning intellectual property rights infringements and 65.1% of medical products trafficking cases. The medical products category covers falsified, counterfeit, substandard and unregistered pharmaceuticals, as well as health supplements and medical devices.
The environmental and weapons findings show why the contents of a parcel matter more than its delivery channel alone. E-commerce was involved in 65% of reported flora trafficking cases, while its association with weapons trafficking was concentrated in particular components. The same postal or express network can therefore bring very different enforcement questions to an officer’s desk: whether a plant is subject to trade restrictions, whether a component is controlled, or whether the documentation matches the goods.
Taken together, these findings suggest that parcel targeting needs to connect a broad view of delivery networks with detailed knowledge of the goods moving through them. Identifying a suspicious shipment is one step; establishing what it contains and whether that movement is lawful requires specialist expertise.
For Customs, these differences matter. An officer examining suspected counterfeit goods may need confirmation from a rights holder, as the Guatemala case illustrates. A plant shipment may require species identification and expertise in CITES, the convention regulating international trade in endangered species. Assessing a weapon component requires knowledge of the item and the controls that apply to it.
These goods can travel through the same delivery networks, but recognising the risks they present requires access to different specialists. Effective parcel controls depend on connecting the information about a shipment with the expertise needed to assess its contents.
What this means for Customs
The cases examined here point to a common challenge: different forms of illicit trade use the same delivery networks, while detecting them requires information and expertise spread across operators, authorities and specialists. The WCO’s findings suggest three priorities for strengthening parcel controls.
Make parcel targeting part of everyday risk management: The report calls for postal and parcel risk profiling to be embedded in national risk management frameworks. Advance electronic data, cooperation with postal operators and shared risk indicators are central to that effort. Receiving information before arrival gives Customs an opportunity to assess a shipment earlier and organise the response it may require.
Connect targeting with the expertise to act:Selecting a parcel for inspection does not resolve the case. Officers still need to establish what the goods are and whether they comply with applicable requirements. The Guatemala case required verification with a rights holder; the environmental analysis highlights the value of combining inspection tools with risk analysis and CITES expertise. These examples show how data, equipment and professional judgement contribute at different stages of a control.
Make each interception useful beyond the individual case:The report calls for risk indicators that connect different trafficking streams and for broader, more complete CEN reporting. Sharing the findings of an interception helps turn a local enforcement event into intelligence that other administrations can use. The quality of that contribution matters: seizure totals alone cannot explain whether trafficking has increased, controls have improved or reporting has expanded.
A new WCO initiative provides a practical channel for this cooperation. On 9 October 2026, 128 National Contact Points representing 105 Customs administrations joined the online launch of the Enforcement e-CENcomm Platform. According to the WCO, this closed platform gives members a dedicated space to exchange information securely on e-commerce enforcement, strengthen their understanding of emerging threats and share best practices. Its purpose aligns with a central challenge identified in the report: helping administrations learn from enforcement experience beyond their own borders.
As e-commerce continues to grow, postal and express networks will remain essential to connecting businesses and consumers across borders. Protecting those networks from illicit trade is part of sustaining that opportunity. For Customs, this means bringing together earlier information, specialist expertise and shared intelligence to target harmful shipments while keeping legitimate deliveries moving. The challenge is to make protection as integral to cross-border delivery as speed and convenience.
