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I think this is what happened with India more recently. They actually had parts finished in India to let them have the jobs and then, after getting the parts shipped here, stripped them down and redid them here in the U.S. so they would be up to specifications.

I think the East Indian Rosewood raids by the government were silly but, respectfully, what you suggested is not what happened.

Gibson bought unfinished blanks of East Indian Rosewood. Some were 510-530 by 75-70 by 10mm and some were 510-530 by 72-62 by 10mm. They were unfinished.

The ones that triggered the raid were shipped to the U.S. into Dallas in two containers without a Lacey Act declaration. Some import papers showed the ultimate consignee as Luthier's Mercantile (a small company in Californina) but had instructions to ship them to a warehouse in Nashville; some import papers left the ultimate consignee blank. The description on one container said it held veneer; the description on the other container said it contained finished products.

When the representative from Luthier's Mercantile was contacted, she filled out Lacey Act form and missing customs papers and stated that the ultimate consignee was really Gibson.

The government went to the address of the warehouse in Nashville and found another shipment of unfinished East Indian Rosewood fingerboard blanks that had come into U.S. customs through Canada, showing Luthier Mercantile as the ultimate consignee. However, the warehouse showed the feds an email from Luthier Mercantile stating that for customs purposes, Gibson was actually the ultimate consignee.

At this point, I think the government thought Gibson was involved in some kind of 'hide-the-ball' conspiracy stuff in getting the wood into the country and to Nashville.

From this . . . there were raids on Gibson.

I think the government's position is bad because everybody (and I mean everybody) uses East Indian Rosewood along with NON-Madigascar ebony as fingerboard wood on guitars (even Fender, which also uses maple). India may have Harmonized Tariff Schedule rules that prohibit the export of split or cut wood over 6mm in thickness (it does; India's HTS is online), but I don't think India's ever enforced that for fingerboard blanks.

Gibson made itself suspicious by using this proxy company and cloak-and-dagger stuff to get these shipments from Dallas and Canada.