Fabulous four days spent in Puebla, enjoying good quality conference presentations and panel discussions as well as great Mexican hospitality.

Last week was the time for the 9th World Customs Organization PICARD Conference (PICARD = Partnerships in Customs Academia Research and Development), taking place in Puebla, Mexico. I had the pleasure to spend there the three conference days (plus one day extra for sightseeing). Some 150 delegates from around the world were present at the conference, where one of the research themes was about illicit trade. Four co-authors and myself had prepared a supply chain security paper titled “The Role and Value of Customs Administrations in Minimization of Socio-Economic Negative Impacts Related to Illicit Import Flows in Freight Logistics Systems- Three Preliminary Cases in Europe – FP7-CORE”, which I presented on Thursday. Feedback from the audience was positive; also some nice comments were made about the presentation during the Thursday evening gala dinner. On Friday I gave a brief update on CBRAs research activities during year 2014, highlighting the importance of FP7-CORE project to the global supply chain, governmental agency as well as academic communities. As the last item, on Friday afternoon I joined a Youth Forum –panel discussion, where around 20 top students of Tecnológico de Monterrey asked many interesting questions on counterfeiting, smuggling, corruption and so forth from our five person panel. This was a great finish for the 3-day event – Muchas Gracias Pueblo – and c u all next year @ Baku! Juha