Duty Fraud Attorney Tim McInnis
Duty Fraud Attorney- Tim McInnis
NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire‐USNewswire/ ‐‐ The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a complaint in intervention on September 22, 2016, in a Customs False Claims Act case brought by Joseph Black, of The Cullen Law Firm, PLLC, Washington, D.C. and Timothy McInnis of McInnis Law New York, N.Y. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The original action was filed on January 3, 2013 as United States ex rel. Xing Wei v. Yingshun Garments, Inc., et al., 13 CIV 55‐LAK.
Ms. Wei’s complaint alleges that the defendants engaged in a scheme to undervalue textiles imported into the United States for the purposes of avoiding Customs duties. The textiles in question were subject to relatively high duty rates of up to 32 percent. Ms. Wei’s son, James Zhu, discovered this practice while working at Yingshun Garments in 2009. Mr. Zhu gave that information to his mother, who sought out Mr. Black to file a False Claims Act action.
The government’s complaint enlarged Ms. Wei’s action by alleging fraud against Marie Rodgers, an employee of Yingshun Garments, and Notations, Inc, one of Yingshun’s customers. The significance of this intervention is that it shows that DOJ is willing to charge an employee of the importer and the downstream buyer of the undervalued merchandise with Customs fraud.