Prevention, Research and Innovation

This Policy Brief compares findings of research on corruption at the port of Rotterdam and at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint between Bulgaria and Türkiye. It examines how corruption and cross-border crime interact in border spaces and what this means for enforcement efforts.

This Working Paper explores how insights from foresight and anticipatory governance can inform anti-corruption efforts that are more forward-looking and adaptive.

Published in the Journal of Illicit Trade, Financial Crime, and Compliance, this article examines how Bulgaria’s 2007 accession to the European Union transformed illegal activities and corruption at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint.

While the introduction of stricter EU regulations and advanced surveillance technology aimed to secure the border, these measures had the effect of transforming criminal strategies and corruption. The authors detail a shift from blatant smuggling to more sophisticated financial frauds, VAT carousel schemes and the illicit privatisation of public border functions.

The article highlights that in some cases, it was the bribery schemes that evolved to bypass new standards. In other cases – particularly involving drug trafficking and the smuggling of human beings – it was the criminal strategies that transformed, including advanced concealment methods or new smuggling routes.

The study also offers a nuanced perspective on the relationship between corruption and criminal activites at border checkpoints: stronger capacity to counter criminal activities could lead to an increase in the risk of corruption, while a more coherent anti corruption framework could trigger criminal activities to evolve. Ultimately, the article argues that anti-crime and anti-corruption policies must account for this evolutionary nature.

Corruption at land and sea borders facilitates smuggling, sanctions evasion, tax offences and the entry of counterfeit, substandard or unsafe goods into countries including EU member states. This report conceptualises border corruption as a complex system of actors, events and illicit exchanges that is difficult to detect and investigate.

Drawing on research from the Horizon Europe FALCON (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks) project, it explores how innovative technological tools – illustrated by the “FALCON dashboard” – can help investigators manage, visualise, interpret and report large volumes of heterogeneous data in support of more effective investigations.

About this report

You may share or republish this report under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.

This report was written as part of the FALCON project. FALCON is funded under the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Program Grant Agreement ID 101121281. The Basel Institute on Governance, as an associated partner without the right to receive funds directly from the European Research Executive Agency, has received funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union, the European Research Executive Agency or SERI.

Corruption at borders poses a significant threat to the integrity of the European Union’s external borders, undermining security, trust, and governance. And border corruption is not static — it evolves in response to new controls, technologies and enforcement strategies. This means that even well-designed measures may lose effectiveness over time.

A new Policy Brief by the FALCON (Fight Against Large-scale Corruption and Organised Crime Networks) project outlines actionable recommendations for EU policymakers and officials involved preventing and combatting border corruption.

The brief identifies four priority areas:

• reducing discretionary face-to-face interactions at border crossing points through digitalisation;
• developing harmonised, risk-based digital infrastructures that can detect corruption-prone patterns;
• limiting manual data handling to close opportunities for manipulation; and
• strengthening the conceptual alignment between anti-trafficking and anti-corruption strategies.

It argues that effective reform requires corruption-sensitive implementation frameworks, enhanced inter-agency coordination and a shift toward anticipatory governance.

The Basel Institute on Governance is an associated partner of the FALCON project. Jacopo Costa contributed to the Policy Brief and related research.

FALCON is funded under the Horizon Europe Framework Program Grant Agreement ID 101121281. The Basel Institute on Governance receives funding from the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).