Three hundred and forty-eight grams of gold, tucked into a handbag, nearly slipped through Tabanovce unnoticed. Customs officers caught it - and the same old question opens up again: how many got through, and how many were caught?

At the Tabanovce border crossing, on the way into the country, customs officers stopped an attempt to smuggle 348 grams of gold jewellery worth around 1.3 million denars, or roughly 21,000 euros. The case surfaced during a detailed inspection of a car carrying a married couple - Macedonian citizens living in Belgium.

In the passenger's handbag, officers found 26 pieces of gold jewellery. She now faces criminal charges for smuggling, punishable under the Criminal Code. So the jewellery was being brought in undeclared, in the form that hides most easily - piece by piece, in a handbag.

But what the number from a single case does not tell you, the year's statistics do. Since the start of 2026, thirteen gold-smuggling cases have been uncovered, with more than 2.5 kilograms of gold jewellery and coins seized. Thirteen cases caught in half a year - and that is only what passed through a checkpoint, not what passed without one.

The logic is not hard to follow. Gold prices are at historic highs this year, and the gap in customs and tax duties between Western Europe and the Balkans makes a suitcase of jewellery worth more than several months' salary. Every case caught also means that gold smuggling across our borders is not an incident - it is routine.

Customs did its job this time. The question that remains is whether thirteen caught cases prove the system works - or are just a small slice of a picture we rarely get to see whole.