Four men were recently arrested in Laredo, Texas for international trade-based crimes involving fraud, smuggling, duty-evasion and other conspiracies, ultimately cheating the Government of Mexico out of over $136M USD in tariffs. Their scheme, which involved the false-classification of fake silver coins moving between the U.S. and Mexico, is one of a variety of illicit trade-based tactics used by illegitimate businesses, money-laundering cartels, and other bad actors to cheat the U.S. and Mexico out of hundreds of millions of USD in duties and tariffs every year.
CT Strategies Executive and former Assistant Commissioner for U.S Customs and Border Protection’s Office of International Trade, Allen Gina, recently provided insight to the San Antonio Express on various types of trade crimes. These include trade-based money laundering schemes where criminal enterprises will sell what appear to be legitimate products between phony shell companies on either side of the border. Another all too prevalent scheme involves concealing the origination of goods from China and falsely claiming them as tariff-exempt through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Further details can be found in the article linked below.
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