Credit to: Steve Allen / Shutterstock.com Vessels calling in Lomé (Togo) should be aware that they may face fines of over 130 million Euros and prison sentences of between 3 months and one year for exchanging items with local people, notably fishermen. In the three cases known to us, following requests from fishermen, vessels at anchorage gave them small quantities of low value items such as barrels of sludge, bottles of water, or scrap in exchange for seafood or sim cards. In each case, the fishermen were arrested on their return to the port of Lomé and gave their accounts of the facts to the police before the vessels were detained. After preventing them from sailing, customs told the vessels that they were liable for fines of somewhere between 60 and 130 million Euros on the grounds that their informal transactions constituted smuggling. In all cases to date, customs refused to either: discuss the fines unless the fine demand documents ("Procès Verbal de Constat" or "PV") were signed by a party with a formal mandate to speak on behalf of the vessel, or allow the signee to add standard disclaimers such as "Without Prejudice" or "For Receipt Only". On the one occasion that a disclaimer was used, it was after weeks of discussions with customs. During this time, the vessel remained under detention and no negotiations regarding the amount of the fine could start. The reason these smuggling fines are so high is that they are calculated according to: the value of the items that were exchanged plus twice the estimated values of all the vessels involved plus customs duties of between 28% and 49% on both the articles exchanged and the estimated values of the vessels. Relevant Articles of Togolese Customs Code The Fine Demands from Customs refer to the following articles of the Togolese Customs Code (Law n° 2018-007) which we have translated into English: Article 60 - Paragraph 2 No goods can be discharged or transferred without written authorisation from Customs. Discharge