From illegal drugs to counterfeit watches, Louisville saw a record number of illegal shipments in fiscal year 2021, according to a release by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The release said that the most dangerous items seized by officers were narcotics, with Louisville CBP seeing a 29% increase and a total of 14,368 pounds taken. The most common was marijuana at 5,400 pounds and a street value of $10.8 million. Other scheduled drugs came in second at 1,700 pounds. Third was methamphetamine at 1,682 pounds valued at $7.56 million. Officers also seized 84 pounds of fentanyl worth $1.14 million.
“The staff at the Port of Louisville has done a tremendous job this year in enforcement actions,” said LaFonda Sutton-Burke, Director, Field Operations-Chicago. “Our officers and specialists are some of the most highly trained in the nation, and their level of expertise is evident in these numbers.”
Officers in Louisville reportedly seized 5,705 shipments and issued 11,766 Emergency Action Notices between Oct. 1, 2020 and Sept. 30, 2021. They found hundreds of packages with counterfeit items, with much of them coming from overseas. The release said criminals are selling substandard and sometimes dangerous items at high prices to fool customers.
There was a 136% increase in counterfeit items this fiscal year, which included things like counterfeit watches, AirPods and handbags. The Louisville Port of Entry was third in the country in seizing intellectual property rights violations. The release said that CBP officers in Louisville seized packages that had a suggested retail value of more than $263 million which is up from last year’s amount of $111 million.
Also seized was 13 shipments of counterfeit currency amounting to $145,839,000.
Port Director-Louisville Thomas Main said that while express courier and international mail facilities work at high volume and those shipping illegal goods feel the odds are in their favor to smuggle, he said the officers working are doing a good job on curbing the problem.
“The numbers show the officers and specialists stationed at these hubs and facilities are extremely skilled at finding that one illegal shipment out of 200,000 every night, and they are among the nation’s finest in recognizing and intercepting illicit shipments of any kind,” Mahn said.
