Can Contraband Estimates be Included in Statistical Data? Maybe Not

An interesting discovery News Five made only a few weeks ago, was that there was no one government ministry or department that could furnish us with even an estimate of the losses that the local economy suffers to the contraband trade. So, today, we posed the question to the S.I.B., if perhaps, there could be at least rough estimates shared. Here’s that response.

Diana Trejo, Acting Director-General, S.I.B.

Diana Trejo

“By its very nature, contraband is something that there is not a lot of information available and unfortunately, one of the limitations in the way that we work and produce data is that we have to work with reliable information that we can verify and validate, that we can replicate down the line, so that would be a challenge. It probably would require some kind of special study where estimates are made based on the limited pieces of information that are there. It would probably require some assistance from experts in this area, so it is something that – certainly it’s a missing piece of information, but it’s not something that we are in a position right now to provide.”