Border smuggling often involves the illegal transportation of goods, merchandise, prohibited substances, or other items through unauthorized entry points or using illicit methods to avoid detection. This can include drugs, weapons, counterfeit goods, people smuggling, and more.
In recent years, the United States government has paid special attention to border security. Consequently, import/export crimes have become highly prosecuted, and people convicted of these crimes face potentially severe penalties.
Import and export crimes can be investigated by various government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -with its branches of Customs, CBP, and ICE control- United States Postal Service (USPS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA ), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and even the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Cross-border trade between Mexico and the United States brings consumers a whole range of goods and services to satisfy needs, from the most basic to the most sophisticated, because it is allowed to import 500 dollars per person per day free of tax when crossing into Mexican territory.
This free trade has developed marketing networks along the border and other cities such as Monterrey (Nuevo León), Ciudad Juárez Chihuahua (Chihuahua), Monclova (Coahuila), among others.
The smuggling of immigrants, merchandise, and fentanyl in particular, across the US-Mexico border has highlighted growing tensions between the two countries, as both presidents face conflicting internal pressures.
Fentanyl has been the leading source of drug overdose deaths in the United States, and synthetic drugs like fentanyl account for two out of three overdose deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That has made fentanyl a priority for President Joe Biden’s administration and the center of a line of attack by congressional Republicans who accuse Biden of not doing enough to stop smuggling at the border and even they have called for designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
In Mexico, there is also concern about the synthetic drug, and more along the border region in the north of the country with the United States. However, recent assertions by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that Mexico does not produce fentanyl has put Mexico at odds with the United States and has caused divisions between the two countries as they battle record numbers of fentanyl smuggling.
A variety of products associated with money laundering, among which are fuel derived from “huachicoleo” –as the robbery of petroleum product pipelines is known–, false copies of branded clothing or accessories, weapons, cell phones, Chinese, electronic products, derivatives of pork meat and particularly eggs, has become a real headache for customs authorities. Egg prices, which have increased by approximately 60%, have taken center stage in the last two years. And it is that Under federal law, travelers are prohibited from bringing into the United States certain agricultural products, including eggs and chickens, because they could transmit plant pests and animal diseases.
A large number of transport companies are under investigation, either for violations of their business activity or for irregularities in their records. Information portals such as Opencorporates, Company Snapshot, LoadMatch, Saferweb or UniCourt, among others, present profiles and reports of companies such as H&R Logistics, Sports, LA Inc, LAC, Nuvo Cargo, SEKO Logistics, Union Pacific, Seko Logistics among many others, to that any businessman who wishes to send his products knows for sure with whom he can negotiate for the safe cross-border transport of his cargo.
Express line of transport
We spoke with Manuel Sotelo, national vice president of the northern zone of the National Chamber of Cargo Transportation known by its acronym in Spanish as CANACAR, and president of the Association of Carriers of Ciudad Juárez about security measures for the passage of merchandise from Mexico to the US.
“In fact, we were the pilot plan by the American authorities. Mainly the American customs for a certification that since the beginning of 2000 established so that we could have a clean and safe supply chain ”, he says in an interview.
He adds that the regulation took on more importance and relevance after the Twin Towers as the United States closed itself off from the world.
“Today the certification is called CTPAT. Pretend that City Pat is like an express cargo line where we have to certify the operator, the carrier, logically the exporter and we have to invest a lot, a lot of money to be able to have that certification.”
He explains that the system implies that in addition to the carrier being certified, the exporting company –mostly maquiladoras– and the operator of the truck must also be certified. In addition, Sotelo had to transform the security of its facilities.
“I had to put up a huge fence at least two meters high, lighting, closed circuit cameras. I had to put in place procedures for hiring personnel, for the entry of visitors, in such a way that I can tell the American authority, “Look, they are not going to contaminate me here,” says the businessman.
He adds that some trucks are escorted and that a lot of time and money have been invested precisely so that the vehicles are not “contaminated”, since vehicles with loads, without loads or without boxes are checked by canine units (K-9) before to enter the United States.
“So, logically, if I were a drug trafficker, well, I would use those that do not meet all these standards. And yes, there is contraband, and there have been cases”, replies the carrier.
“And in recent times, according to the information I have, we have no contraband data. It is very difficult for us to have information because the American customs does not provide information when there is an event of this type ”, he adds.
However, he insists that the trafficking of illicit merchandise to the United States still exists, although he assures that it is less and less in cargo transportation.
The obligatory question is: How do some carriers smuggle?
The businessman responds: “Well, they don’t comply with these certifications. They hire people who meet those certifications. The CTPAT is a certification for carriers and exporters who want to enter the United States”. He explains that in the US they check approximately 40 percent of the trailers that cross daily. “Imagine that imports from the United States to Mexico go through a customs system where 10 percent of the merchandise passes the review, if a lot, 15 percent, we do not have the capacity to do everything,” he concludes.
By: Karen Santamaria
