A New Era of Trade Enforcement

Trade fraud takes center stage and continues to expand as a priority for the Department of Justice (DOJ).

On July 14, 2026, the DOJ announced its plans to expand trade fraud enforcement by creating the Global Trade & Commerce Enforcement Section (GTCES) within the DOJ’s newly formed National Fraud Enforcement Division.

Notably, this new section announcement coincided with the disclosure that in just 10 months, the government has recovered over $1 billion because of enforcement efforts led by the cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force (TFTF). This suggests a likely correlation between the substantial recovery and the formation of GTCES.

For context, the DOJ’s commitment to expanding trade fraud enforcement became apparent in August 2025, when the DOJ and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced their partnership to launch the cross-agency TFTF. This partnership was born out of a need “to bring robust enforcement against importers and other parties who seek to defraud the United States” and “to aggressively pursue enforcement actions against any parties who seek to evade tariffs and other duties, as well as smugglers who seek to import prohibited goods into the American economy.” More broadly, the TFTF sought to advance President Trump’s America First Trade Policy by strengthening compliance with U.S. trade laws.

TFTF’s Success

The DOJ reported that since inception, the TFTF has achieved success across diverse industries, including:

• Perfectus Aluminum (May 12, 2026) (CDCA): U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)-led criminal investigation resulted in the collection of $549.5 million through a FCA settlement concerning [a] massive scheme to evade antidumping and countervailing duties on aluminum extrusions.

• Boise Cascade (April 27, 2026) (SDFL): HSI-led criminal investigation resulted in a $6.3 million fine and guilty plea for Lacey Act violations where the company demonstrated willful blindness toward illegally imported birch plywood.

• Ceratizit USA (December 18, 2025) (EDMI): $54 million FCA settlement to resolve allegations of knowingly failing to pay duties on tungsten carbide products imported from China.

• Royal Sovereign (April 28, 2026) (DNJ): $8 million criminal fine and restitution ordered after failure to report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission dangerously defective imported air conditioners allegedly linked to more than 40 fires and one death.

• MGI International (December 12, 2025) (DNH): HSI-led criminal investigation leading to resolutions against a global plastic resin distributor and its former executive concerning misrepresentations of the goods’ country of origin to avoid paying Section 301 duties.

The Future of the GTCES

The DOJ’s actions in creating GTCES on the heels of TFTF’s success signal the department’s desire to continue what TFTF started.

After all, the GTCES’s mission is “to investigate and prosecute criminal import, trade, and other fraud offenses that undermine American industries, evade external revenue collection, threaten consumers’ health and safety, finance foreign adversaries, promote forced labor through illegal trade practices, and violate United States laws and regulations governing domestic and foreign commerce.”

The DOJ and DHS have made it abundantly clear in their joint Resource Guide to Trade Fraud Enforcement that they intend to hold companies fully accountable for participating in trade fraud.

The guidance highlights the need for companies to maintain their compliance measures in every step of the supply chain and that failure to do so or to modernize oversight may result in serious legal consequences. The guidance also highlights that compliant, transparent supply chains are the best defense against legal exposure.

Together with the government’s significant recoveries in under a year, the creation of a new section within the National Fraud Enforcement Division and the issuance of resource guidance make it clear that companies and their supply chains should be on alert for stricter trade fraud enforcement and heightened accountability in the future.