When the FBI Comes Calling…®
IMPORT / EXPORT CRIMES (Continued)
18 U.S.C. § 546 (2007).
The Crime
It is a violation of section 546 for "any person" to do the following:
- own in whole or in part any vessel of the United States and
- employ, participate in, or allow the employment of, such vessel for the purpose of
- smuggling, or attempting to smuggle, or assisting in smuggling, any merchandise into the territory of any foreign government in violation of the laws there in force, if the foreign government has a reciprocating statute that punishes violations of the laws of the United States respecting the customs revenue, and
- employ, participate in, or allow the employment of, such vessel for the purpose of
- be a citizen of, or person domiciled in, or any corporation incorporated in, the United States, controlling or substantially participating in the control of any such vessel, directly or indirectly, whether through ownership of corporate shares or otherwise, and
- allow the employment of the vessel for any such purpose, and
- be found, or discovered to have been, on board of any such vessel so employed and participating or assisting in any such purpose
- hire out or charter a vessel having knowledge or reasonable grounds for belief that the lessee or person chartering the vessel intends to employ the vessel for any of the purposes described in this section and if the vessel is, during the time it is leased or chartered, employed for that purpose. 18 U.S.C. § 546.
The Punishment
The punishment for a violation of section 546 is
- a fine, imprisonment for not more than two years, or both.
Case Law Interpreting Section 546
The case law interpreting section 546 is generally straight-forward, even if the statute is terribly convoluted. However, with Pasquantino having been recently decided, the ability of the government to punish people for smuggling goods into other countries is expanding. We discuss this aspect a little later in this section.
United States v. Miller, 26 F. Supp. 2d 415 (N.D.N.Y. 1998).
In Miller, the defendants were indicted for smuggling tobacco and liquor products from the United States to Canada across the St. Regis Mohawk Indiana Reservation which straddles the international border between the State of New York and the Canadaian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Miller at 418. Apparently, the defendants would purchase imported Canadian-brand tobacco products from Canadian distributors, ship them from Canada to locations in Western New York, then to warehouses on the reservation, and from there by sled or boat back into Canada without going through Canadian customs. Id.
The defendants sought dismissal in part on the fact that Canada does not have a reciprocating statute that criminalizes smuggling into the United States from Canada as required by section 546. This argument was ultimately successful, id. at 426, and were it not for Pasquantino, discussed later, this would be most likely the end of the story for attempted prosecutions of smuggling goods from the United States into Canada.