I understand your sarcasm regarding the 2011 raid. However, I don't anything was done solely to avoid paying the 5.7% tariff.
And I think the government's differentiation between HS 9902 and 4407 is overly legalistic.
But the entire import scenario was outlandishly strange - strange doesn't mean illegal or meant to cover up something illegal - but strange.
If I import "Product A", then I'd expect Importer 1 to import it as Product A, with me listed as Consignee. Unless, of course, Product A is illegal to export.
I wouldn't expect illegal Product A to be exported with papers listing it as legal Product B, which are then changed to papers listing and describing it as legal Product C, showing Fake Consignee X as the buyer.
When the product arrived, I wouldn't expect the importer to say that fake Consignee X wasn't the consignee, it was fake Consignee Y, and to declare that the product wasn't actually ordered by me, but by fake Consignee Y, while sending an email to a warehouse saying "ignore the papers that mention Consignee Y, because the consignee's always been this other guy."
And then, when the feds shown up, to have the importer say "forget all that stuff about Product A and Product C, we meant to list it as Product B from the beginning, and forget all of the different pieces of paperwork we've filled out identifying Consignees X and Y and Consignee; they were never consignees; Product B has belonged to us all along as was meant to be our Product B."
At some point you say: "what were you people really trying to do?
And what you've said would certainly apply to tobacco. It's just a leaf. Why in the world arrest somebody who is involved in the smuggling of cigarettes which haven't had the tax stamp applied to the carton/package, using a couple of misleading descriptions, misleading paperwork, and some names of bogus buyers and owners. It was just a leaf, and it's just a tariff or tax that's involved.
But they do such a good job detecting such lethal imported goods, imagine if they set these bloodhounds after actual important stuff, like Obama’s qualifications to be president, or fast and furious documentation, or who the hell is Valarie Jarett, and why is she running the white house.
No, let us all focus our attention way WAY over there, at those evil profit-making luthiers importing with hostile intent, wood.
Wood.
Seriously? Is this a $787,000,000,000 shovel ready investigation? This is what the administration needs to be doing? This is what is newsworthy to all the media? Really?