Mexican Customs Reform Plan Includes Corruption Crackdown, Improved Border Clearance

Mexico will seek to crack down on corruption, triple duty collections and greatly reduce maritime port and Northern border wait times under a recently announced reform plan, General Administrator of Customs Ricardo Peralta Saucedo said in an interview with Mexican news agency Notimex posted by the Mexican Confederation of Customs Broker Associations on April 15.

First announced by Peralta in mid-March (see 1903200071), Mexico’s National Customs Strategy will seek to end a culture of “impunity” in the country, Peralta said. The anti-corruption effort, which is the “principal objective of Mexican customs,” is already paying off, with an increase in the perception of the risk of corrupt actions resulting in an increase in duty collections of 35 percent since last year, Peralta said.

Mexican customs has already implemented an “Anti-corruption Force” and has established systems to report corrupt acts on Twitter and by telephone, Peralta said. That has already resulted the firing of 18 employees of Mexican customs and their prosecution for various criminal acts, such as the case of the attempted importation of 1,400 loads of AK-47 assault rifle loaders disguised as electrical material, he said.

Under the plan, Mexico will invest in infrastructure and customs modernization to facilitate trade, with the end goal of increased duty collections and enhanced national security controls. One proposed initiative is the use of non-intrusive inspection technology on the Northern border and maritime ports with the goal of reviewing cargo in five minutes, impacting wait times by 80 percent. Another is extending working hours to 24 hours per day at all 49 branches of Mexican customs, Peralta said.

A new customs law is also on the horizon, in part to modernize provisions that currently require notification of customs processes by mail. Mexico also plans to split its customs agency off from the Tax Administration Service, where it currently resides, so it becomes its own agency directly under the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit. The current framework under SAT acts as an “administrative dam” where too much bureaucracy does not allow Mexican customs to grow as it would like, Peralta said.

Meanwhile, Mexico customs has “reactivated” a previously under-used and almost un-monitored electronic data processing center to improve its national security-related enforcement. Already, in the first four months of operation, the center has allowed Mexican customs to seize more than 1,700 arms and about a ton per month of various drugs that would have been worth more than $1,500,000,000 if they had reached the United States, Peralta said.

An agreement is also being negotiated between Mexican Customs and CBP, Peralta said, with an eye toward strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation. The bilateral customs agreement should be announced in a couple of months, he said.