Interesting video about the hard work of customs.  Many false alarms.  When I first went to Europe with a school group, some of my school mates tried to smuggle liquor back into the US.  When one poor schoolmates suitcase was searched, one of their liquor bottles was broken in the suitcase.  Although it was legal for them to purchase the liquor in Europe, they were not of age bringing it back to the states.  Even at age fifteen I was allowed to have a beer on my flight home until we entered US airspace, then the alcohol was stowed from the 200+ high school students on board our DC8-63 inbound from Munich and Vienna.

 

In the UK, a great deal of customs hard work was directed at stopping the EU directives on buying as much tobacco and cigarettes as you want for personal use between EU states.

The hinderance, bullying, strong arm tatcics, intimidation on ordinary shoppers doing what the EU allowed in order to preserve the tax obtained on the most expensive cigs in Europe by the UK government was a disgrace.

The theme was everyone was a smuggler commiting a crime unless they could convince customs otherwise, they sent customs officers to the ports like Donald Trump is doing with Mexico.

The government won the war against shoppers, crossing the English channel shopping is now on a much smaller scale, coaches and cars were seized by the the thousands year after year.

Your average British traveller will only buy what they can afford to lose.