Finland shows its resistance to illicit trade

The index assesses the extent to which 84 countries worldwide enable or prevent illicit trade and is built around four main categories: government policy, supply and demand, transparency and trade, and the customs environment.

Finland topped the overall ranking just ahead of the UK, followed by the US, New Zealand, Australia and a handful of European countries: Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany.

Finland ranked first in terms of government policy, the category that measures what policy and legal approaches a country has in place to monitor and prevent illicit trade.

At the other end of the index are Libya at 84th place and Iraq second to last at 83rd place. Regionally, the European countries featured in the index had the highest average score, followed by the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, and the Middle East and Africa.