From the U.S. Attorney:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE SELECTS U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE IN CHICAGO AS LEADING PROSECUTORIAL PARTNER ON TRADE FRAUD TASK FORCE
CHICAGO — Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, today announced that the Department of Justice has selected the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago to be a lead prosecutorial partner on a task force designed to bring robust enforcement against importers, purchasers, supply chain actors, and other parties who seek to defraud the United States.
Those with information about serious trade fraud schemes should consider filing a False Claims Act case in the District or making a voluntary disclosure or criminal referral under one of the avenues available for cooperators or whistleblowers.
The Department of Justice recently created the Trade Fraud Task Force to aggressively pursue enforcement actions against parties who seek to evade federal customs laws, as well as smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy.
Those engaged in fraud increasingly are attempting to illegally import below-market, industry-destabilizing goods without paying lawful duties or smuggling prohibited items that violate laws addressing public health, safety, intellectual property rights, and national security by allowing dangerous, restricted, or adversarial materials to bypass critical screening protocols.
Trade fraud not only deprives the government of vital revenue used to reinvest in the country, but also threatens critical domestic industries, undermines consumer confidence, and weakens national security.
At an economic level, illegally transshipped, mislabeled, and misdeclared merchandise also creates a two-tier pricing structure for imported products: higher prices for buyers and sellers unwilling to transact in transshipped, mislabeled, and misdeclared merchandise, and cheaper prices for those willing to do so or who are otherwise indifferent.
In a significant policy speech on Monday at the Forum on Trade Investigations Enforcement and Litigation in Arlington, Va., the Head of the Department of Justice’s Trade Fraud Task Force, Cody Matthew Herche, announced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago will serve as a lead prosecutorial partner on the Task Force, along with attorneys from the Department of Justice and agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the speech, Mr. Herche praised U.S. Attorney Boutros for his “partnership and extensive thought leadership in highlighting and combatting trade fraud” as well as his decades-long work in the space both as a federal prosecutor and thereafter.
When U.S. Attorney Boutros served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago from 2008 to 2015, he led what still stand as the Department of Justice’s largest-ever criminal trade fraud prosecutions, spanning 27 corporate and individual defendants across multiple indictments[1], with losses totaling approximately $260 million.
Those cases provide valuable insight into how the Trade Fraud Task Force will build future criminal prosecutions.
After his initial public service as a federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Boutros handled many matters and investigations involving trade fraud, authored numerous articles and book chapters on the subject, and served as the keynote speaker at several noteworthy legal conferences throughout the country.
“As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. observed, ‘[A] page of history is worth a volume of logic,’” said U.S. Attorney Boutros.
“Early in my career as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in this Office, I led a series of momentous trade fraud prosecutions that laid the groundwork for the Trade Fraud Task Force.
“There were many unprecedented challenges in these difficult cases, but I was determined by a strong sense of the law and all equities, while also being fortified by an unwavering agency partner in the Department of Homeland Security in Chicago.
“Together we persevered and worked relentlessly for years to bring what still stand as the largest and most significant criminal trade fraud cases in our nation’s history.
“I take great pride in knowing that we were the architects of this enforcement area and that we were decades ahead of our time.
“It is also deeply satisfying that the vision we had for this enforcement area nearly 20 years ago has now been adopted at the very highest levels of the Department and is being implemented across the whole of government.”
The Northern District of Illinois spans 18 counties—from the Lake Michigan shoreline on the eastern edge of Illinois to the Mississippi River on the state’s western border—and serves as a major transit hub in the middle of the United States. Air and water transportation centers in northern Illinois are critically important global, national, and regional connectors.
The Illinois International Port District, also known as the Port of Chicago, annually moves more than 19 million tons of cargo. Located along Lake Michigan on Chicago’s Southeast Side, the Port of Chicago provides the means to move bulk commodities across the Chicago region and beyond, whether by water, train, or truck.
O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was the 13th largest air cargo hub in the world in 2024 (the most recent year for which final data is available), moving more than two million tons of cargo, while Chicago Rockford International Airport in Rockford, Ill., moves more than a million tons of cargo per year, making it the 13th busiest airport for cargo in the United States. Under our federal criminal laws, any offense involving the importation of an object may be inquired of, and prosecuted in, any district from, through, or into which the imported object or person moves.
“Chicago is one of the largest and most significant inland ports in the United States, allowing for expansive venue opportunities for criminal and civil trade fraud matters,” said U.S. Attorney Boutros.
“Trade compliance is a key concern for not only our region’s economic security, but also that of our entire nation’s. The Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office will be strongly committed to holding parties accountable for their fraudulent schemes that undermine honest American competitors. We are proud to stand with our Department of Justice and agency partners as a prosecutorial leader of the Trade Fraud Task Force. I applaud the Administration for bringing greater focus, intensity, efficiency, and impact to prosecuting all varieties of trade fraud and safeguarding American ingenuity and security.”
The Trade Fraud Task Force will advance President Trump’s America First Trade Policy by pursuing those who violate customs laws through duty and penalty collection actions under the Tariff Act of 1930, actions under the False Claims Act, and, where appropriate, parallel criminal prosecutions, penalties, forfeitures, and seizures.
The Trade Fraud Task Force encourages importers, their agents, purchasers, other supply chain actors, and industrial and commercial end-users to conduct thorough audits of their sourcing, purchasing, and importing practices, and voluntarily self-disclose and remediate unlawful behavior.
In addition, the Trade Fraud Task Force welcomes False Claims Act filings as well as referrals and cooperation from the domestic industries that are most harmed by unfair trade practices and trade fraud.
[1] Among the cases U.S. Attorney Boutros brought as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois in the criminal trade fraud area were: U.S. v. Giesselbach, et al., 08 CR 417; U.S. v. Yong Xiang Yan, 09 CR 424; U.S. v. Shu Bei Yuan, 11 CR 84; U.S. v. Couture, 11 CR 781; U.S. v. Hung Yi Lin, 13 CR 125; U.S. v. Groeb Farms, Inc., 13 CR 137; U.S. v. Murphy, et al., 13 CR 138; U.S. v. Jun Yang, 13 CR 139; and U.S. v. Urbain Tran, 13 CR 140.
