Editor’s Note
This article reports on a flight attendant stopped at Bergamo’s Il Caravaggio Airport for attempting to smuggle undeclared luxury jewelry worth over €42,000 into Italy, as part of ongoing customs and financial police operations targeting smuggling risk routes.
The watches and precious items seized from the woman.
Orio al Serio (Bergamo), March 9, 2026 – A 38-year-old flight attendant was stopped at Il Caravaggio Airport in Bergamo (Orio al Serio) while attempting to bring undeclared luxury jewelry into Italy worth over €42,000. The operation was conducted by personnel from the Customs and Monopolies Agency together with military officers of the Guardia di Finanza from the Orio al Serio Company, engaged in checks on passengers arriving from routes considered at risk for smuggling, particularly from the Middle East.
The woman, of Ukrainian origin and arriving from Dubai, had passed the currency line in the international arrivals hall without submitting the required customs declaration. However, her cautious demeanor aroused the suspicions of officials, who decided to proceed with a more thorough check. In her hand luggage, two empty Rolex boxes and two Cartier packages were found.
When asked for explanations, the flight attendant provided justifications deemed implausible, also showing a waybill that turned out to be fictitious, according to which the jewelry would have been shipped to Russia directly from the United Arab Emirates. The check was then extended to her person: the woman was wearing a Cartier bracelet on her forearm and had hidden two Rolex watches and a Cartier ring in a rigid pouch concealed under the skirt of her uniform. From the commercial documents found in her handbag, the value of the four precious items was reconstructed, amounting to €42,085, with evasion of customs duties exceeding €9,000.
Having ascertained the violation of smuggling due to failure to declare, below the criminal threshold, the woman was subjected to an administrative sanction with the obligation to pay approximately €11,800. The jewelry was seized.