U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a total of $1.3 billion worth of cocaine in a week. The Office of Air and Marine (OAM) P-3s operating out of National Air Security Operations Centers in Jacksonville, Fla. (NASOC-JAX) and Corpus Christi, Texas (NASOC-CC), assisted in the interdiction of a Self Propelled Semi-Submersible (SPSS) carrying close to 14,000 pounds of cocaine, and two go-fast vessels carrying more than 4,400 pounds of cocaine with a combined value of more than $1.3 billion.

This summary report highlights the most active textile and apparel tariff preference levels from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s April 10, 2012, “Quota Weekly Commodity Status Report.” It also lists the TRQ commodities on CBP’s weekly March 26, 2012 “TRQ/TPL Threshold to Fill List.”¹

U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted an updated version of its spreadsheet of ACE ESAR A2.2 (Initial Entry Types) programming issues.

A listing of recent antidumping and countervailing duty messages from the International Trade Administration posted to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Web site as of April 11, 2012, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching on the listed CBP message number at http://addcvd.cbp.gov.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is seeking comments by June 11, 2012, on an existing information collection on lien notices for freight. CBP is proposing to extend this information collection with a change to the burden hours or information collected.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hosted meetings at the initial three ports which will be piloting Simplified Entry. The meetings provided bi-directional education for both CBP and the Trade on how Simplified Entries will flow in the Air Mode of Transportation (MOT). The Simplified Entry visits were held at all three pilot ports: the Fed Ex hub in Indianapolis, Ind. on March 14th, the Chicago, Ill. Field Office on March 16th, and the Atlanta, Ga. Field Office on March 19th.

A recently released U.S. Customs and Border Protection February 23 Implementation Guide for Messaging Interface between International Trade Data System Trade Partners and the CBP Document Image System (DIS) for importers and brokers provides extensive technical details on the messaging processes. The document, numbered ITDS-DIS-IG-1.2.6, says For Official Use Only. CBP recently began the first phase of DIS testing for Importers and Brokers using ACE.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said there was an incident in ACE M1 Production on April 10 between the hours of 1 a.m. and 4:15 a.m. EST that resulted in some Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages failing for 096 RUN HAS BEEN TERMINATED errors. CBP said the issue has been resolved and to re-submit any input jobs that resulted in that message.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports that Collier Bennett Harper of Lakewood, CA, is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court Monday morning following his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents for importing more than 1,000 counterfeit Microsoft Office CD-ROMs and selling them over the Internet. Taken into custody late Friday, Collier is charged in a four-count federal indictment following the seizure of two shipments of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2007 software CD-ROMs. Specifically, the indictment charges Harper with two counts of trafficking counterfeit goods and two counts of smuggling. If convicted of all charges, Harper faces a maximum sentence of 60 years in federal prison.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will seek comments on an extension of existing information gathering regarding Cargo Container and Road Vehicle Certification for Transport under Customs Seal, according to a notice published in the Federal Register April 10. Comments are due June 11. CBP proposes the extension of time without change to the burden hours.