Jordan Times
Sunday, February 8, 2004
'Anti-Corruption Unit handled 1,520 cases since 1996'
AMMAN (Petra) — The General Intelligence Department's Anti-Corruption Unit has handled 1,520 cases of tax and customs evasion, forgery of official documents, illegal arms trafficking, bribery, IT piracy, fraud and violations of the commodity specifications regulations over the past eight years, according to a detailed report.According to the report, the unit during this period tackled 304 cases of tax evasion, 201 cases of forging official documents, 197 cases of customs evasion, 167 cases of illegal arms trafficking, 121 cases of bribery, 98 cases of IT piracy, 79 cases of fraud and 85 specifications-related cases.
In addition, the department dealt with 27 cases of artefacts trafficking, 26 cases involving forgery of official seals, 25 cases of embezzlement, 20 cases of impersonation, and 19 cases of human organ trafficking.
The most “serious” case, according to the report, involved smuggled radioactive material into the country last year.
According to the figures, the percentage of cases handled from 1996 till 2003 increased by 200 per cent from 110 to 332 respectively, while corruption cases rose last year by 11 per cent, compared to the previous year.
On the other hand, the figures show a drop in the number of tax evasion cases from 52 in 2002 to 41 last year. Similarly, cases of customs evasion dropped from 43 to 41, and the number of official documents forgery fell from 36 to 33.