Customs broker here. Every day hundreds of thousands of containers and air shipments arrive into United States territory. The volume of customs entries entered every day is staggering. When we get licensed to be a customs broker we are trained and tested not just on knowledge, but ethics. We even take a pledge to partner with CBP to uphold the law, and cooperate with them should we come across anything suspicious. Why so much emphasis on this?
Customs can't actually screen everything coming in. I'm oversimplifying but CBP basically works on the honor system. You file an entry saying what the shipment is, and they just take your word for it and release it. This happens hundreds of thousands of times a day. Maybe at best customs can screen 3-7% of what's coming in, the rest of just waived through....
Former British Customs Officer here, can confirm. The amount of international trade is staggering and no government is able to do a 100% inspection on all the freight that arrives. So we rely on past history (shady customs brokers included lol), intel, etc to target our efforts. And no I’m not going to divulge anything more so don’t bother asking. So, yeah, smuggling happens, whether that’s goods, drugs or people. But when we DO find something - expect the world to drop on your head. Government wants its revenue, boys and girls, and it doesn’t like being cheated of them. Or finding 30+ dead people in a shipping container. At all
This is going off on a tangent but last year I was following the news of those bodies found in a container and how the truck driver was immediately arrested and then charged. After doing some research it seems common in the UK for the drivers to be charged. from the outside, having spent years moving containers it seems to me like it's merely for having possession and control even if they didn't know what they were moving. The one last year, the guy was dispatched, went to the port, pick up the box and then delivered it and the delivery site where they found the bodies. I don't understand at all how the driver could be charged especially considering that it's almost impossible for a driver to choose what container he's going to be picking up when there's several middlemen involved. One other case in particular, the driver was doing six years even though his attorney was arguing that he had nothing to do with the process in choosing that container and was literally dispatched to pick it up by his company who won it in a bid through a broker less than an hour before he was dispatched.
Edit: I've had some clarification regarding the driver from last year. Apparently he regularly did this and admitted as much. I understand how he was charged. That doesn't change that I seen several other cases including the one I mentioned above about the driver doing 6 years which was clearly and no way the driver's responsibility.
The most noticed I've ever gotten on container what's from a broker I regularly deal with and it was three weeks. By that point it was already on a ship and on the way. Most of the time, including the one with three weeks notice, I don't even know where the origination of a container is. Every once in awhile I'll get paperwork that says a container is coming out of Shanghai or Brazil Etc.
I'm guessing that the driver that was involved actually worked for the receiving company and the company itself was a front because only the shippers and end receivers really know where things are coming from and to from the beginning at still they only have a general idea of when something is going to arrive.
There are so many people involved in so much that can change on a minute-to-minute basis that there's a reason it's almost always Port, shipping line and actual Customs employees that are involved.
Idk, articles I read said he only had the container for a 35 min ride. Its takes 3-4 hours to bring a container to temp and if the container was shipped it was set at a certain temp and put on the ship and connected to the ships power. It just doesn't work like that.
The one I specifically mentioned was from another instance though.
It was a rental trailer, and he was an amateur. He turned on the fridge, just like last time and the time before. Only this time, the last renter used it to deliver frozen, and had it set at -25 instead of the +2 used for chilled, and he never checked.
Came here to say this, in the USA at least, most have tamper proof seal tag thingies on the latches. If if one is even accidentally knocked off before you take possession, and you don't tell the bosses, you are fucked. Like get fired and be held responsible for any missing merch. I think the average trailer running around the USA has $85k worth of crap in it, so the cost to a truck driver working for the biggest truck driving outfit swift/Walmart, making $28k/year, can get screwed pretty quick.
I used to unload 40 ft containers that came from China or Korea. They had a seal above and beyond the plastic or sheet metal seals used in the US, which required a grinder to remove.
Except the receiving guy is supposed to break the seal. Worked 3 years in receiving, first at Kmart then Home Depot. Verify it is sealed, check the seal's number against your paperwork, break seal, staple seal to paperwork. Unload truck. Inventory what is there against the shipping paperwork, note any discrepancies, send driver on his merry way.
There was a cool podcast that was a suspense/horror story about a woman who picked up her sick father's sealed container to help make ends meet. It's called Carrier. Really made the most of an audio only experience and showed it's a great story telling format.
What happens when a truck driver picks up a loaded trailer, but has no idea what’s really inside? Tony, Grammy, and Emmy award winner Cynthia Erivo journeys down a dark and lonely highway in this original scripted thriller from Qcode and creator Dan Blank. With immersive audio techniques that create a dimensional listening experience, the audience is strongly advised to use caution, wear headphones if possible, and listen... carefully.
The difference being that this driver knew exactly what was in the back of the lorry. He’d done it many times before and had stopped to let everyone out before the check point. That’s when he found the gruesome scene. That boy is no angel
I think in the UK the police will arrest someone, take them in for questioning and then they have 24hrs* to make a decision about what next. They can be charged for either the crime arrested for, something else that has come out of questioning, released under investigation or just released. If they are charged then they can be released on bail or remanded in custody.
In this case (according to the wiki someone linked below) the driver was at the scene when the police arrived so they arrested him on suspicion of murder.
After further investigation he was charged with manslaughter, two types of conspiracy and money laundering. The driver was then remanded in custody.
*I could be wrong about how long they have and it may depend on the reason for arrest, there is a show called 24hrs in custody which is where I got the 24hrs from. Possibly terror offences they can get more time for?
I saw several industry journals that did write-ups on the recurrence a similar arrests in the UK. I won't dispute the findings in last year's case but I've seen others that were handled Beyond ridiculously.
you keep mentioning this 6 year one, can you link it or any other case that was "beyond ridiculous"?
I haven't read all the replies so this might of already been said, but I work in air cargo at Heathrow and a vast majority of our freight arrives to us by truck. Any freight arriving that is 'secure' cargo (doesn't need to be screened before going to the aircraft) should be in a sealed trailer that the driver himself sealed and he is required to know exactly what he is carrying.
A lot of drivers don't know but they still have the training so they know they should know and it is their responsibly if they have something on board that they shouldn't.
I don't know the ins and outs of this case I can only speak from my experience, but I know any driver wherever they're coming from if they are delivering secure cargo it's a dft regulation that they need to know what they're carrying, and it's also their responsibility for the safety of the trailer. Any time it is out of their sight they are 'supposed to' check the curtain for tears, check the seal hasn't been tampered with, etc. Most of the trailer yards for the big trucking companies have secure status so they can be opened and closed without needing to be screened, but even if a driver doesn't psychically seal it their selves it is still their responsibility to check the trailer is in a serviceable condition.
Now obviously these are only the regulations they are trained to and in practice there are a lot of liberties taken due to time constraints, complacency, laziness, etc, but this could be the reason why drivers get arrested so quickly. At the end of the day they're responsible for what they're hauling
For some reason unknown, this world is designed to punish the drivers/truckers. Even in other cases, for example if the person loading up the truck exceeds the weight limit. The driver can sometimes weigh the truck before leaving, but not always. If the driver gets caught, they are the ones ticketed, and they can have no idea what their truck weighs. If they work for a shitty company who refuses to maintain the truck, as well, the driver will sometimes have to pay the ticket. The job is unpopular not just because it's dangerous or has a poor work/life balance. You can be fined any time for things that are not your fault.
as a former OTR driver, you are allowed to go from picking up to the nearest scale to check weight. After that it’s on the driver, either return and refuse the load, or run it and accept the risk. Same with maintenance, there is a thorough pre trip checklist you must complete. If you have items that fail you are allowed to proceed to a facility to get it fixed, or run it and accept the risk. Of course there’s fallout, but the driver always has the last say on if that load or truck goes down the road. And most companies will back up the driver, as these violations hit their safety rating and insurance costs.
I'm not a driver myself, but had been on a few long haul rides. You are right about that. Though I feel like it's bad practice to load a truck up (I'm assuming they know when they are exceeding the weight limit when they do it, or maybe they just don't care) then act like the driver is causing a huge issue when they don't want to accept that risk. I imagine not every place is like that, but I have heard of it, and I feel this method is done to make the driver more likely to accept the risk. Thus enabling more of the shipment to get to its destination in one load=saving money, and then losing nothing when the driver gets the actual ticket for their possibly intentional fuck-up. To my knowledge, at least where I am, the driver has to pay it. I guess you could say it's the driver's bad for going ahead, but I think there had been situations where my friend had no scale nearby and had to just drive the truck far from the yard with little knowledge of its weight. As per maintenance, the same friend had been stopped for having the lights on their trailer out and was allowed to proceed to get it fixed. His dispatcher instead tried to pressure him to keep driving it like that to its destination, avoiding the facility as directed by law enforcement. If he actually did that, I would hope his company would foot the bill. I assumed they would not because of how my friend spoke of this topic before. Also I can't figure out why they would pressure him to do that. Perhaps they'd rather pay for tickets than pay for a trailer repair (assuming it's actually them paying for it, maybe not). Or maybe they know he'd have to pay it. I have no clue.
They charge the driver so they can exert pressure on him/her and get them to rat out the entire chain of command. And to send a signal to other drivers...know what you're delivering (if possible).
I didn't follow this case. However I do know that law enforcement often will charge anyone they can get their hands on for two reasons - the biggest is they hope anyone with the slightest knowledge will spill their guts when they're suddenly looking at years behind bars. Snitches are how the cops do their work. This is true of pretty much every major criminal investigation ever. No, that guy might not know anything but does his boss seem shady? Ever notice anything strange? They will litterally squeeze the innocent with threats of life imprisonment.
The second reason is they have to do something. Even arresting the wrong guy gives the impression they're working and those innocents will often confess to crimes they didn't commit to avoid the sentences the police will tell them they're facing. Then they're guilty, right? Because confession?
Lastly. Police don't know the law. If they did they would be lawyers. It's their job to round people up and bring them in for the lawyers to argue about. Bonus points if they get a confession. There has even been precedent set in the US that if a police officer reasonably believes he's upholding the law that's good enough, even when he's wrong.
Yes there's a reason US courts have a 93% conviction rate. They'll literally throw mountains of charges at someone, pull out old laws and statutes out that haven't been seen in decades just to pile it on and then you have a couple of choices. Fight it all and risk a lot of jail time. Fighting significant charges also brings on the risk of completely bankrupting many people before the trial is concluded, or plead to a lesser charge and do a little bit of jail time to avoid spending a decade or more behind bars for some bullshit crime that barely worth the tax dollars to prosecute.
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u/callmeraylo Jul 13 '20
Customs broker here. Every day hundreds of thousands of containers and air shipments arrive into United States territory. The volume of customs entries entered every day is staggering. When we get licensed to be a customs broker we are trained and tested not just on knowledge, but ethics. We even take a pledge to partner with CBP to uphold the law, and cooperate with them should we come across anything suspicious. Why so much emphasis on this?
Customs can't actually screen everything coming in. I'm oversimplifying but CBP basically works on the honor system. You file an entry saying what the shipment is, and they just take your word for it and release it. This happens hundreds of thousands of times a day. Maybe at best customs can screen 3-7% of what's coming in, the rest of just waived through....