The recent Department of Justice (DOJ) memorandum outlining the National Fraud Enforcement Division’s priorities signals a strategic shift in how DOJ intends to investigate and prosecute fraud. As discussed in our prior article on the memo’s health care implications, the memo shows that DOJ will concentrate its resources on fraud that threatens the “health, safety, security, and prosperity of Americans,” with emphasis on five priority areas: public trust and financial integrity, health care, internal revenue, global trade and commerce, and corporate misconduct.
This article focuses on what the memo means for companies engaged in global trade and commerce — particularly U.S.-based importers. The takeaway for these companies is that customs and trade fraud enforcement has entered a new and far more aggressive phase, and importers who are not accustomed to this level of government scrutiny need to get up to speed.
The Fraud Division memo explicitly identifies “Global Trade and Commerce” as one of its five principal enforcement priorities. According to the memo, the Division will “lead the Department’s coordinated criminal enforcement strategy, targeting trade and customs violations and supply chains polluted by forced labor.” The memo further states that prosecutors will focus on “systemic, high-impact noncompliance that threatens our economic and national security,” including “illicit transshipment schemes, country-of-origin fraud,...
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