The Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) will rely on artificial intelligence and machine learning to stop pirated cigarettes entering maritime ports.
“20 percent of the tobacco or cigarettes sold in our country come from pirate spaces, so it is necessary to generate a chatbot with artificial intelligence and machine learning to combat piracy,” said Santiago Nieto, head of the organization attached to the Ministry of Economy (SE).
He stated that the idea is that the chatbot will review all the information sent by individuals and companies to locate, secure and destroy pirated tobacco and cigarettes.
Read: Illicit cigarette market generates losses of almost 27,000 million pesos annually: IPN
“Of the merchandise seized in the last 13 months, more than 90 percent comes from China, and the rest comes from Taiwan, Vietnam and even Türkiye,” he said.
Yesterday Santiago Nieto and the director of the National Citizen Observatory, Francisco Rivas, signed a collaboration agreement in order to establish the bases, infractions and mechanisms for the design and implementation of activities in matters of security, justice, legality and crime prevention.
As part of the agreement, the observatory donated a technology for WhatsApp called “IMPIBot” to IMPI.
“The National Citizen Observatory and British American Tobacco Corporation provided us with data on the import route of pirated tobacco to Mexico via customs or it is produced in the Mexican countryside using and violating registered and legal trademarks,” he commented.
He said that annually, the impact from the sale and marketing of pirated tobacco is 15 billion pesos.
He added that in the 13 months of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, more than 15 operations have been carried out, which has involved the seizure of illegal merchandise for 892 million pesos.
“Last week we carried out the largest destruction process of the administration with 919,000 counterfeit Colgate products,” the official said.
You may like: Black market in cigarettes generates tax losses of 13,000 million pesos: Colmex
According to the former head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, there was a violation of industrial design in the toothbrushes, as well as an alteration of the brand by using the brand’s logos and seals.
The pirate toothbrushes were imported from China to the Mexican market, he explained.
“The destruction of the pirate brushes was carried out in the presence of the brand’s directors, so the process of destroying the pirate merchandise will continue,” he stated.
