FWC Arrests Eight Connected to Illegal Species Exports

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced today that it concluded a six-month undercover operation with arrests of eight (8) Tampa Bay area licensed commercial bait fishermen (or "fisherpersons" for the hyper-PC-inclined). FWC alleges the octet caught and sold bait shrimp for human consumption and that the fisherman illegally sold bycatch species such as peppermint shrimp, protected sharks, shark fins, bay scallops, and sea horses. FWC reported that sales of the contraband were sent to Amsterdam and New York (f/k/a New Amsterdam). Under Florida state law, the more severe charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000.00 fine. FWC estimates the group's activities spanned a minimum of five years and netted the individuals an illicit multi-million-dollar profit - an estimated $600,00.00 for illicit sales of peppermint shrimp alone. FWC investigations supervisor, Captain Andy Krause, noted that some of the individuals have been arrested before on the same charges.

FWC named the following seven (7) individuals engaged in the criminal activity:

• Harley Jay Rodriguez;
• Charity Lynn Rodriguez;
• Jesse Jay Rodriguez;
• Robert Ray McClure;
• Patrick Howard Walsh;
• Michael B. Helmholtz, and;
• Gerald Richard Sylvester.

The eighth individual, a juvenile, was not named by FWC. FWC's undercover operation involved the establishment of a fictitious company, One Tropical Way, which purchased contraband from the octet. As part of the operation, the fishermen hid illegally harvested species in hidden compartments which were not properly aerated - meaning that several specimens died of suffocation in the compartments and never reached the market. FWC hinted that additional arrests may be forthcoming.

FWC hopes that DOJ will bring charges under the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act prohibits trade in species that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported, or sold. It bolsters state, federal, and foreign laws in that it provides additional criminal and civil penalties for violations of those laws related to the protection of species. The Lacey Act carries a maximum criminal penalty of $20,000.00 and five years imprisonment and a maximum civil penalty of $10,000.00 and one year incarceration.

Hopefully, DOJ will bring charges, and will coordinate with CBP and ICE to investigate possible additional violations associated with those purported shipments to Amsterdam.

OFAC Says Union of Good - Not So Good

OFAC updated its website today to add Union of Good to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). Union of Good was originally established to collect charitable contributions for only a hundred and one days, but had its activities extended following the initial impressive collection of receipts. Along with Union of Good, OFAC designated several entity aliases as follows:

• 101 Days Campaign
• Charity Coalition
• Coalition of Good
• Etelaf Al-Khair
• Etilafu El-Khair
• I'tilaf Al-Khair
• I'tilaf Al-Khayr

Executive Order 13224 lays out OFAC's authority to make such designations, and the effect of the OFAC designation prohibits any and all transactions with SDGTs, and blocks SDGT property. OFAC's November 12, 2008 designation follows on the heels of a similar designation made by Israel's Defense Minister in 2002, outlawing Union of Good for "its massive support of Hamas." This February, 2005 study posted by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies linked Union of Good to the dispersement of payments associated with three suicide bombers, including a suicide bombing in Netanya and a suicide bombing in Ariel.

Some might wonder why there is a six year lag between Israel's recognition of a terror supporter and the US's official recognition of the same. I do not have an answer. All I've found is that the lag appears to be a two-way street.

On July 7, 2008, Israel's Defense Minister was reported to have signed an order declaring thirty-six (36) entities to be banned associations in Israel. The entities were found to be part of Hamas's worldwide fundraising network, and connected to Union of Good. Among the entities was the Holy Land Foundation. OFAC designated the Holy Land Foundation an SDGT in December, 2001. Additionally, the US Government has brought the Holy Land Foundation and its key personnel to trial for charges related to the financing of terrorism - twice. The first trial ended in jury deadlock on most counts and a mistrial on those deadlocked counts in October, 2007. Today, the jury began deliberation in the retrial of the Holy Land Foundation.

Perhaps this lag is representative of a government's slow expansion of the effects of its regulations to entities further and further from home. Union of Good operates from the doorstep of Israel. Holy Land Foundation operates from within the US. Each are half a world away from the other. The problem is that SDGTs half a world apart can quickly coordinate cooperative activities. If it always takes six years or more for the likes of Israel and the US to get on the same page, the goal of the Global War on Terror had better be a tortoise and hare race.

BIS Fires Second Shot at Cabela's

On November 7, 2008, BIS posted to its website that BIS had settled allegations involving 76 exports of optical sighting devices for firearms with Cabela's Incorporated (Cabela's) - the self-proclaimed World's Foremost Outfitter - for a whopping $680,000.00. The size of the settlement, which equates to almost $8,950.00 per export, is in no doubt due to the fact that, in 2005, BIS and Cabela's settled 685 violations involving exports of gun sighting devices and shotgun parts for $265,000.00. The 2005 settlement contains a thirty-two page appendix detailing the unlicensed exports, and provides detailed insight into specific items falling into ECCNs 0A984 and 0A987.

Judging from some of the postings to Cabela's online catalog, the retailer has instituted some internal controls on exports - for example, this announced prohibition on exports of night-vision products. And this posting reported that Cabela's cited US export controls in declining to send some sort of knife to the United Kingdom. But despite two settlements, Cabela's online catalog voices no restrictions on the export of most of the advertised optical sighting devices.

Undoubtedly, Cabela's size and success make the flawless implementation and management of a comprehensive export compliance program exceedingly difficult. Nevertheless, the US Government should expect nothing less from a purveyor of firearms and ammunition. An optical sighting device is only a hunter's scope until such time as it is put into the hands of a sniper. At a minimum, Cabela's should be updating its website to reflect export restrictions for all products requiring a license prior to export, and should be educating all of its employees to be able to spot red flags - more especially considering Cabela's clientele has a strong base among hunters, fishermen, and marksmen, all of whom like their toys and are prone to braggadocio and open chatting on the subject. BIS can monitor Cabela's actions and compliance with little more than a dial-up connection and halfway decent search engine. Going forward, the US Government is likely to be unsympathetic to Cabela's missteps. Even the guy working the cash register is simply going to have to understand that when someone pays in Canadian dollars for items like powder, primer, chrono, and bullets, he's going to have to ask the right questions.

US Customs Holds Chicken Not Festive Enough for Easter

On October 24, 2008, Robert B. Swierupski, CBP's Director of the National Commodity Specialist Division, answered a request for a tariff clarification ruling for two items:
1) "Speckled Egg Basket," and;
2) "Feather Chicks in Cage."

Even though both the "Speckled Egg Basket" and "Feather Chicks in Cage" shared common characteristics - namely twigs, Styrofoam, and (perhaps most importantly) dyed sisal grass - CBP held that only the "Speckled Egg Basket," due to its inclusion of pastel-colored plastic eggs, would be considered a recognizable festive motif for the Easter holiday. On the other hand, CBP found the baby chicks, which are constructed of Styrofoam covered in natural chicken feathers and which are the centerpiece of "Feather Chicks in Cage," to be too generic to be a recognized festive motif. Consequently:

The applicable subheading for a "Speckled Egg Basket" (Sku 2316875) will be 9505.90.6000, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which provides for "Festive, carnival or other entertainment articles, including magic tricks and practical joke articles; parts and accessories thereof: Other: Other.". The rate of duty will be Free.

The applicable subheading for "Feather Chicks in Cage" (Sku 2316875) will be 6701.00.3000, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which provides for skins and other parts of birds with their feathers or down, feathers, parts of feathers, down and articles thereof (other than goods of heading 0505 and worked quills and scapes), articles of feathers or down. The rate of duty will be 4.7 % ad valorem.

With Halloween just having ended, perhaps there is still enough time to dye the chicks a nice shade of pastel and to staple a tiny bonnet to their fluffy little heads - festive them up enough to qualify for a duty-free rate.

OFAC Fines Captain Kirk for Giving Comfort to the Romulans

Okay - not quite. But OFAC did release new enforcement information today, and among the penalties was a settlement for Priceline.com, Incorporated (Priceline) in the amount of $12,250.00 for alleged provisioning of assistance on the part of Priceline foreign subsidiaries in which Cuba or Cuban nationals had an interest. And, as any Star Trek aficionado could tell you, William Shatner, who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in ST: TOS and in several spinoffs, is also the spokesperson for Priceline. This happy coincidence gave me the opportunity to scour pictures from conventions to go with the snappy title I thought up on my ride home from work.

Priceline's foreign subsidiaries' alleged provisioning of travel-related assistance was described by OFAC as "arranging hotel reservations for Cuban nationals without an OFAC license." Priceline voluntarily disclosed the issue to OFAC, which involved violations occurring between September, 2004 and Novemeber, 2007.

As Clif Burns reported in his August 13, 2007 article dedicated to the $182,750.00 penalty OFAC levied against Travelocity for having allegedly made reservations for travel to Cuba, OFAC issued a letter on April 16, 2002 indicating that OFAC opines that the restrictions embodied in the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) extend to the activities of US companies' overseas subsidiaries. OFAC's letter was issued in response to a US-based online travel company's request for OFAC to clarify CACR impact on the company's foreign subsidiaries' ability to provide web-based support for travel to Cuba. Here's a tasty excerpt from that letter:

You suggest that failure to issue the license you have requested may result in "intergovernmental disagreements" over the scope and applicability of U.S. laws and regulations. Notwithstanding your concern, we disagree with such arguments against OFAC's jurisdiction and find that they do not provide a reason to issue the requested license.

With this stage already set, Priceline, receiving a penalty less than a tenth of that doled out a year ago to Travelocity for similar perceived CACR infractions, should consider itself somewhat lucky that OFAC had apparently only set its penalty phaser to stun.

Latest Illegal US Export: Mexican-American US Citizens

In what appears to be a disturbing rising trend, on October 28, 2008, Anna Gorman reported in the Los Angeles Times of yet another US-born Mexican-American illegally deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In fact, Guillermo Olivares Romero claims to have been illegally deported on two separate occasions - once in 2007, and again in September, 2008 after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border to visit his ailing father in Los Angeles. His father died the same day Olivares was illegally deported for the second time by ICE officials. Following his father's death, Olivares attempted to legally enter the US from Mexico with his mother. When ICE officials purportedly requested that Olivares sign deportation papers, Olivares refused and asked to see a judge - at which point ICE officials detained Olivares. He remained detained from September 25 to October 9. On October 9, 2008, an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) presented Olivares' birth certificate, school, and vaccination records to immigration officials, after which authorities released Olivares and acknowledged that Olivares is a US citizen.

On August 9, 2007, Daniel Hernandez published in the LA Weekly the story of Pedro Guzman (pictured above left with his brother, Juan Carlos Charbes), a US citizen born in Lancaster, Claifornia who, after apparently suffering some sort of mental breakdown, was deported by ICE to Mexico. Guzman trekked the US-Mexico border seeking a path to re-entry for eighty-nine (89) days and over one hundred miles - eating from garbage cans and bathing in canals to sustain himself physically. Upon return to the US and release from jail, Guzman's family described him as stuttering, shivering, and barely coherent. He appeared to be unable to speak any English at all, a language in which, prior to the ordeal, he was completely conversationally fluent. Ironically, the only reason Guzman was eventually detained by US officials was that his computer records showed border officials that he had an outstanding US warrant for violating his parole - failing to appear with his probation officer in the US.

In both cases, the US citizens signed voluntary deportation orders, bringing into question whether US officials are properly utilizing this mechanism, which is designed to reduce the time and cost associated with the processing and return of detained illegal aliens - a discernible benefit, when used appropriately, for both the US and the detained alien. Given the claims of widespread abuse, it behooves US officials to consider whether the signing of such a declaration should mandate an additional cost of zealous legal representation for the signor prior to signing. Whatever the ultimate solution may be, it is clear there is a problem which must be resolved. This type of treatment of US citizens at the hands of the US Government is unconscionable and must not be tolerated.