Lying about where your goods come from is now one of the most expensive mistakes in trade compliance.

DOJ stood up a dedicated trade fraud task force in August of last year, and it moved fast.

Its first settlement came three months later.

This May, it announced the largest customs-related False Claims Act recovery ever, roughly $550 million from aluminum companies and affiliated warehouses accused of evading anti-dumping and countervailing duties by disguising Chinese aluminum extrusions as unregulated pallets.

A week later, two steel companies paid $19 million for allegedly passing off steel from several countries as Canadian or American.

Here’s the legal engine.

Underpaying duties you owe the government is a reverse false claim, which means treble damages and whistleblower awards, and data miners are now behind more than 45% of new qui tam filings.

So patterns in your public import data are visible to people who profit from finding them.

As tariffs climb, so does the temptation to misdeclare country of origin, tariff classification, or value.

Put customs and origin compliance inside your enterprise risk assessment, audit your broker’s entries, and verify origin documentation yourself.

Don’t assume your broker did.

The Ethics and Compliance Q and A show is produced by One Stone Creative.