Herdade Lokua and Jospin Mujangi, both of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were arrested and indicted for trafficking elephant ivory and white rhinoceros horn from the Congo to Seattle, the Department of Justice said. The pair allegedly worked with a middleman to bring in four packages that contained the ivory and rhinoceros horn. All four were sent via air freight, with three arriving in August and September 2020, and the remaining one in May 2021. Lokua and Mujangi also conspired to send large packages via ocean freight. The shipments in this scheme allegedly included elephant ivory, pangolin scales and rhinoceros horns. The pair cut the tusks and horn into smaller pieces that were painted black to avoid detection. The parts were mixed with ebony wood and declared as "wood" with values of $50-$60, DOJ said. The duo also allegedly paid bribes to local authorities in Kinshasa, the city where they live, to get the goods out of the Congo. Lokua and Mujangi now stand accused of conspiracy, money laundering, smuggling and Lacey Act violations, facing a maximum of 20 years in prison for the smuggling and money laundering charges and five years for the Lacey Act and conspiracy violations.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer,D-Ore., chairman of the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, want to pass a law that would require importers of certain commodities to first certify that they exercised reasonable care that the products they are buying were not produced on illegally deforested land. If the goods -- such as palm oil, soybeans, cattle, cocoa and rubber -- are coming from a country that the government designated as high-risk for illegal deforestation, importers will have to fully document their supply chains and the measures buyers took to ensure it was not produced on deforested land.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Sept. 27 - Oct. 1 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Lacey Act declarations will be required in ACE for entries subject to the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s sixth phase of enforcement beginning Oct. 1, even though tariff flags might not immediately be in place for the relevant subheadings, an APHIS official said during CBP’s biweekly call with ACE software developers on Sept. 30.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Sept. 20-24 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
As the sixth implementation phase of Lacey Act declaration requirements for plants and plant products approaches Oct. 1, officials with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reminded importers and exporters that more phases are to come before the agency meets its statutorily required goal of subjecting all plants and plant products to Lacey Act enforcement.
Global Plywood and Lumber Trading LLC was sentenced to pay $200,000 in restitution to Peru's Ministry of Environment after pleading guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice said. The company admitted to importing illegally sourced timber from the Peruvian Amazon, in violation of the Lacey Act. The court also ordered the company to pay a $5,000 fine. In 2015, Global Plywood bought around 1,135 cubic meters of hardwood blanks from three suppliers in Peru, which then arrived at the Port of Houston, where it was seized by CBP (see 1606090042). In its guilty plea, Global Plywood admitted not obtaining or reviewing relevant harvest permits or Forest Travel Guides from SIGO, an open-source website run by the Peruvian government; failing to check SIGO for irregularities connected with its purchased timber; and relying on suppliers' statements without conducting due diligence, DOJ said. Global Plywood dissolved in 2017, forfeiting the illegal timber after civil action commenced.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, with a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, is proposing that minks raised for fur production be added to the Lacey Act. That would prevent the sale, possession or transportation of captive American mink and their pelts. The text of MINKS are Superspreaders Act was published July 30. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., was joined by 18 co-sponsors, including seven Republicans, led by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means. The change would take effect one year after enactment. “The factory farming of mink threatens public health, especially as we continue fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic,” DeLauro said in a press release when the bill was introduced. “The evidence is clear: mink operations can incubate and spread new COVID-19 variants and pose a unique threat of extending the pandemic. At the same time, with virtually no domestic market, the U.S. mink industry has been in steady decline for years. Now is the time for this legislation to become law, and I am urging all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan effort.”