DOJ celebrates $1B trade fraud haul, boosted by tariff evasion case
<p>Surrounded by pallets filled with seized drones and vapes inside a Bensenville warehouse Tuesday, Justice Department officials touted more than $1 billion in recoveries they attributed to a federal trade fraud task force created less than one year ago.</p><p>But roughly half of that figure came from a recent settlement in a years-old case involving tariff evasion.</p><p>The Justice Department’s Trade Fraud Task Force, launched last August, has surpassed $1 billion in civil and criminal recoveries, penalties, forfeitures and publicly charged losses tied to various trade schemes, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald announced.</p><p>About $550 million of those recoveries, however, came from a settlement reached in May between the Justice Department and California-based Perfectus Aluminum in a fraud case dating back to 2011.</p><p>Perfectus Aluminum and its affiliated companies were found guilty in 2021 of evading import duties on Chinese aluminum products by falsely declaring more than 2.2 million aluminum extrusions as finished aluminum pallets between 2011 and 2014.</p><p>“That fantastic settlement embodies the work of this group here to bring together the collective resources to ensure that the American worker and American businesses are no longer being defrauded,” McDonald said, flanked by several federal officials, including <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/07/09/judge-finds-chicagos-embattled-u-s-attorney-violated-secrecy-order-in-tren-de-aragua-case" target="_blank" >U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros</a>.</p><p>The announcement was made at the U.S.
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<p>Surrounded by pallets filled with seized drones and vapes inside a Bensenville warehouse Tuesday, Justice Department officials touted more than $1 billion in recoveries they attributed to a federal trade fraud task force created less than one year ago.</p><p>But roughly half of that figure came from a recent settlement in a years-old case involving tariff evasion.</p><p>The Justice Department’s Trade Fraud Task Force, launched last August, has surpassed $1 billion in civil and criminal recoveries, penalties, forfeitures and publicly charged losses tied to various trade schemes, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald announced.</p><p>About $550 million of those recoveries, however, came from a settlement reached in May between the Justice Department and California-based Perfectus Aluminum in a fraud case dating back to 2011.</p><p>Perfectus Aluminum and its affiliated companies were found guilty in 2021 of evading import duties on Chinese aluminum products by falsely declaring more than 2.2 million aluminum extrusions as finished aluminum pallets between 2011 and 2014.</p><p>“That fantastic settlement embodies the work of this group here to bring together the collective resources to ensure that the American worker and American businesses are no longer being defrauded,” McDonald said, flanked by several federal officials, including <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/07/09/judge-finds-chicagos-embattled-u-s-attorney-violated-secrecy-order-in-tren-de-aragua-case" target="_blank" >U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros</a>.</p><p>The announcement was made at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Centralized Examination Center, where thousands of goods intercepted from supply chains are redirected for further inspection or seizure.</p><p>“These schemes run the gamut, from the aluminum products to, let’s say, mattresses, to gold jewelry. Really, anything and everything that the American public would seek to purchase, there are foreign actors who are looking to exploit the money of America and then develop these schemes to send those products into the American economy,” McDonald said.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center> <div class="Enhancement-item" data-crop=""> <figure class="Figure"><a class="AnchorLink" id="image-520000" name="image-520000"></a> <picture data-crop="medium"> <source type="image/webp" width="490" height="275" data-srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9228faf/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/490x275!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c45ec46/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/980x550!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg 2x" data-lazy-load="true" srcset="data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyNzVweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=" /> <source width="490" height="275" data-srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5fffbfa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg" data-lazy-load="true" srcset="data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyNzVweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=" /> <img class="Image" alt="TFTFPRESSER_260715-26.jpg" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5fffbfa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/77fc813/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275" data-src="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/5fffbfa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x575+0+54/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F19%2F2f%2F321fa6714baebd6eef37476f2b14%2Ftftfpresser-260715-26.jpg" data-lazy-load="true" src="data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIyNzVweCIgd2lkdGg9IjQ5MHB4Ij48L3N2Zz4=" > </picture> <div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Colin M.
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- <p>Surrounded by pallets filled with seized drones and vapes inside a Bensenville warehouse Tuesday, Justice Department officials touted more than $1 billion in recoveries they attributed to a federal trade fraud task force created less than one year ago.</p><p>But roughly half of that figure came from a recent settlement in a years-old case involving tariff evasion.</p><p>The Justice Department’s Trade Fraud Task Force, launched last August, has surpassed $1 billion in civil and criminal recoveries, penalties, forfeitures and publicly charged losses tied to various trade schemes, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald announced.</p><p>About $550 million of those recoveries, however, came from a settlement reached in May between the Justice Department and California-based Perfectus Aluminum in a fraud case dating back to 2011.</p><p>Perfectus Aluminum and its affiliated companies were found guilty in 2021 of evading import duties on Chinese aluminum products by falsely declaring more than 2.2 million aluminum extrusions as finished aluminum pallets between 2011 and 2014.</p><p>“That fantastic settlement embodies the work of this group here to bring together the collective resources to ensure that the American worker and American businesses are no longer being defrauded,” McDonald said, flanked by several federal officials, including <a class="Link" href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/07/09/judge-finds-chicagos-embattled-u-s-attorney-violated-secrecy-order-in-tren-de-aragua-case" target="_blank" >U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros</a>.</p><p>The announcement was made at the U.S.
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DOJ celebrates $1B trade fraud haul, boosted by tariff evasion case
Sources1TypeCoverageChicago Sun-Times