CBP said the 2012 Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) Conference is scheduled for Sept 24-26, in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. A nominal registration fee will be charged and further information will be available soon on this website, said CBP. Due to the popularity of the C-TPAT Conference, there will be a limit of two representatives from the same company enforced in order to enable a wide variety of companies to participate. Registration will open on August 7, 2012. The 2012 East Coast Trade Symposium is scheduled for Sept. 27-28.
Tim Warren
Timothy Warren is Executive Managing Editor of Communications Daily. He previously led the International Trade Today editorial team from the time it was purchased by Warren Communications News in 2012 through the launch of Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. Tim is a 2005 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and lives in Maryland with his wife and three kids.
CBP said officers and import specialists from the Import Specialist Enforcement Team (ISET) at the Laredo Port of Entry recently seized two priceless Egyptian sarcophagi-type artifacts. The artifacts, two sarcophagi, one adorned with a wooden mask with glass eyes and the other with a standing lady of painted stucco over linen, were found to be the rightful property of Egypt.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee gave its approval for the nomination of William Doyle as a Commissioner at the Federal Maritime Commission, during an executive session July 31. The nomination still needs approval from the full Senate.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related issues:
CBP is continually working to deter and stamp out threats caused by corrupt employees, said CBP Acting Commissioner David Aguilar in written testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee held an Aug. 1 hearing on "Unresolved Internal Investigations at DHS: Oversight of Investigation Management in the Office of the DHS IG." The focus of the testimonies is largely on drug and alien smuggling rather than tariff evasion or other trade issues.
CBP issued its Aug. 1 Customs Bulletin (Vol. 46, No. 32), which contains 5 notices of the following ruling actions:
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in a July 31 letter to review an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) decision that exempts importers of tar sands oils from paying into a trust fund reserved to pay for oil spill cleanups. Crude oil importers are required to pay a 8-cents-per-barrel excise tax, which is the largest revenue source for the trust fund, he said. An IRS decision in May 2011 said tar sands oil is not crude oil, and therefore importers of tar sands oil don't have to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Markey said the IRS decision was based off an "outdated" 1980 congressional report that said the term 'crude oil' didn't include tar sands oils. The IRS decision was a result of "inadequate understanding" of terminology used by regulatory and industry bodies, he said.
Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services hired Monica White to the firm’s Washington, D.C., office as director of export compliance. White previously was Export Manager and Empowered Official within Raytheon’s Corporate Export/Import Operations office.
A former San Diego-area CBP officer was sentenced to 115 days in federal prison, after a probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), said ICE in a press release. Dario Tomas pleaded guilty in June to wire fraud after admitting he swindled $240,000 from two victims as part of a financial scheme while working for CBP in Korea in 2007. Tomas admitted to falsely promising the two investors their money would go toward building a computer training school in the Philippines. Tomas later admitted he lost the money gambling. Tomas was arrested in 2010 by special agents with ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) assigned to the agency's attaché office in Manila. Tomas was then extradited to South Korea where he served a two-year prison term for the offense. In April, Tomas was released from prison in South Korea and deported to the U.S. to face federal fraud charges brought in Southern California. Tomas was also ordered to pay $240,000 in restitution to the two victims.
CBP said in a Federal Register notice Aug. 1 that the following Customs broker licenses and all associated permits are canceled without prejudice: