U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep Americans safe from the dangerous items and activities that threaten communities around the U.S.
CBP officers in Louisville seized a total of 518 pounds of illicit drugs and 676 counterfeit IDs, which includes fake ID and passports, during the month of February.
The narcotics arrived from Mexico, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, China, Hong Kong, and other high-risk countries. CBP officers seized: 229 pounds of prescription medication/chemical, 198 pounds of Marijuana, 33 pounds of cocaine, 32 pounds of Ketamine, 24 pounds of Crystal Methamphetamine and two pounds of Fentanyl. All these narcotics would have been worth close to one million dollars.
The 676 counterfeit ID and passports were seized in shipments arriving from other countries destined for different states across the U.S. Most of the fakes were for college kids, but these IDs could be used for other nefarious activities like identity theft, worksite enforcement, critical infrastructure protection, fraud linked to immigration-related crimes such as human smuggling and human trafficking, and these documents can also be used by those individuals associated with terrorism to minimize scrutiny from travel screening measures. CBP Officers coordinate findings with CBP’s Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit (FDAU), Homeland Security Investigations and other federal partners to combat this illicit activity.
“The FDAU’s mission is to remove fraudulent travel documents from circulation and prevent the use of these documents by mala fide travelers attempting to enter the United States,” said Frances Garcia, Director, Fraudulent Document Analysis Unit. “This specialized unit performs in-depth analysis of documents seized nationwide and produces intelligence from fraudulent documents to uncover global patterns and trends to strengthen CBP’s enforcement posture.”
“These seizures are the dangers our officers see every night and it doesn’t stop,” said Thomas Mahn, Port Director-Louisville. “Our officers do an outstanding job stopping these shipments. These criminals keep trying different ways to sneak their contraband in and our officers do a better job of finding it and stopping it in its tracks.”
