By Jeffrey A. Newman Esq.
Transshipping goods to evade U.S. tariffs on imports happens when a country sends their product to another country then re-names the country of origin and then ships the product into the U.S. Now, the Customs & Border Protection is using AI to analyze shipping data to quantify country of origin inputs and tariffs. The computers can flag mismatches between shipping documents and product specs and also inconsistencies in declared value vs market norms.
In addition the computers analyze data to see import patterns and spot stranshipping schemes. Illegal transshipment refers to deceptive actions to misrepresent a good’s country of origin in order to evade tariffs. It usually involves falsifying documents to claim an inaccurate country of origin or classification of the goods. Historically, this has mostly been through Mexico or Vietnam. In addition, whistleblower programs offer individual a portion of penalties receivered by the US under the False Claims Act. The percentage for the whistleblower is between 15-30% of recovered revenue in customs fraud cases.
Jeffrey Newman is a whistleblower lawyer. His firm’s web site is www.JeffNewmanLaw.com and he can be reached at Jeff@Jeffnewmanlaw.com or at 978-880-4758
