Customs Agents

U.S. Customs agents intercepted a 24-ton shipment of Pakistani rice infested by a destructive crop pest this week at the port of Baltimore — just days before a federal quarantine on such imports was scheduled to begin. The Customs and Border Protection agency reported that its agents found dead Khapra beetles, a species that has been showing up in rice imports with growing frequency, aboard a ship Tuesday. The agency said a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the identification of the insect the following day. Restrictions on imports of rice from countries where Khapra beetle infestations are known to occur go into effect Saturday.

Jaime Arbona, former customs agent for the ports of entry to Baltimore, died of Alzheimer's disease complications Oct. 20 at his Cedarcroft home. He was 88. Born in Utuado, Puerto Rico, where he attended the University of Puerto Rico, he served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He was stationed in Honolulu. He moved to Baltimore in 1945 and studied at the Johns Hopkins University. He taught Spanish at the Berlitz School and in the Baltimore County public schools system.

MIAMI -- Some Christmas gifts are not what they appear to be. To demonstrate this, Lou Marcos, a Customs Service agent, hoisted what looked like a designer-signed scarf off the table and shook it, so the bold logo stood out from the swirl of colorful paisley patterns."

U.S. Customs agents intercepted a 24-ton shipment of Pakistani rice infested by a destructive crop pest this week at the port of Baltimore — just days before a federal quarantine on such imports was scheduled to begin. The Customs and Border Protection agency reported that its agents found dead Khapra beetles, a species that has been showing up in rice imports with growing frequency, aboard a ship Tuesday. The agency said a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed the identification of the insect the following day. Restrictions on imports of rice from countries where Khapra beetle infestations are known to occur go into effect Saturday.

U.S. Customs Service agents are developing a more refined taste for authentic antique furniture, porcelain and silverware.Their new aesthetic sensitivity is aimed at learning to spot fakes.Foreign exporters or U.S. importers can save themselves from 2 to 25 percent in tariffs by claiming falsely that their goods are more than 100 years old."We checked six shipments and in all six there were things that were declared as over 100 years old that weren't," said Michael Brom, the supervisor of Customs' general investigations division Wilmington, N.C.As the customs investigator who kicked off his agencies' harder look at antique fraud back in 1989, Mr. Brom noted that this type of fraud is often perpetrated by the exporter overseas.

Jackbooting, anyone?There is one quasi-police agency that has the Supreme Court's full blessing to engage in jackboot, fascist tactics that might chill former KGB agents to the bone. They live right here in the United States. They can stop you, strip you and conduct cavity searches of any part of your body any time they damn well feel like it.They're called customs agents. In my Oct. 26 column, I wrote that "The U.S. Constitution clearly forbids unreasonable searches. Customs agents - whether they're body probing [a woman]

Expressing skepticism that two Baltimore area women would be able to prove they were improperly strip-searched by U.S. Customs Service agents, a federal judge said yesterday they will have to provide evidence of their claims before their lawsuit against the government is allowed to move forward. "The burden is on the plaintiffs to come forward with evidence ... that your view of events is sufficiently plausible," U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis said in setting a hearing for Nov. 21. "Otherwise, you would get a trial simply based on an allegation that you were subjected to a body cavity search."

Calling claims by two Baltimore area women that they were subjected to invasive strip searches by U.S. Customs Service agents "patently incredible," a federal judge yesterday dismissed their $6 million lawsuit against the government. "There is just no evidence here that any customs agents exceeded the bounds of propriety," U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis said in deciding the high-profile dispute, which he said came down to a question of credibility. The ruling angered the women, and their lawyer, Edward J. Connor of Camp Springs, Md., said they would appeal.

A 20-year-old Harford County man was arrested yesterday on charges he operated a computer server that allowed people from across the globe to swap images of child pornography, federal officials said. George Morgan Haak of the 5200 block of Deer Trail surrendered to authorities after being indicted last week by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of trafficking in child pornography. U.S. Customs Service agents began investigating Haak in late 1999, after police in Germany discovered an Internet chat room user called "Pornoboy" offering access to his computer server, where photographs of naked children were found, according to court documents.

U.S. Customs agents and the U.S. Attorney for Maryland today announced the largest heroin seizure from a commercial airline passenger ever made at Baltimore-Washington International airport.Customs agents seized 5.42 pounds of heroin and one-fifth of a pound of marijuana Sunday from Alois G. Coleman, 48, of Bethesda, when she arrived at BWI on a flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, federal authorities said.In U.S. District Court in Baltimore yesterday, Magistrate Judge Paul M. Rosenberg released Ms. Coleman on a $75,000 unsecured bond.

Weeks after three Royal Caribbean employees were charged with trying to smuggle cocaine and heroin on board a Baltimore-bound cruise ship, officials found more drugs hidden on the same vessel, they announced Tuesday. More heroin and cocaine — worth around $94,000 — were found on Saturday in a locker in an area largely limited to employees of the luxury cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas, said Steve Sapp, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which carried out the inspection with immigration and customs officials.

It seemed like a routine seizure when federal customs agents intercepted a package of steroids at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. From JFK, the investigation led authorities to Anne Arundel County to what they now call one of the largest stashes of man-made muscle enhancers found in the region.

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection wants shipping companies to tell them what is in every rail car, cargo plane and truck before it crosses into U.S. territory, as part of the federal agency's mandate to prevent terrorists or their weapons from slipping into the country. The new cargo-reporting requirements, which were published Wednesday, are to take effect this fall. They are the latest example of how customs officials are changing the way trade is conducted worldwide, with private industry shouldering a growing portion of the burden to keep borders safe without slowing commerce to a crawl.

John Miller Everett Jr., a retired customer service representative for United Cable in Baltimore, died of kidney failure Monday at Florida Hospital in Flagler Beach, Fla. The former Waverly resident was 45. Mr. Everett was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. He attended a city public high school and received a GED. He served in the merchant marines as a shipboard cook for two years in the 1970s. He was a customer service representative for MCI and a Baltimore credit bureau before joining United Cable, which is now TCI Cable, in a similar capacity, in the early 1990s.

After its hard-won battle for tariffs on imported steel, the domestic industry is taking action to make sure those duties are enforced as rigorously as possible. To that end, representatives of domestic producers will be in Baltimore beginning today to give "Steel 101" training to U.S. Customs Service officers for the port of Baltimore. The agents are to be educated on how to look for suspicious shipments, such as a load of, say, cold-rolled steel from a country that has no cold mills.

WASHINGTON - Federal agents are planning to fan out across the country this week in an effort to recruit U.S. businesses in the war on terror, urging companies to notify the government of suspicious customers. Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of the Customs Service, said he had developed a list of about 100 items that authorities believe terrorists want to buy in the United States. Starting today, Bonner said, federal agents will visit the manufacturers, emphasize the need for vigilance and encourage them to inform the Customs Service at once if they are approached by anyone trying to buy these items for possibly illegal shipment abroad.

The dog's name was Coca Cola. Her belly was full of the real thing -- cocaine.The newest, nastiest ploy of drug dealers smuggling their wares into the country emerged this weekend at JFK -- surgically implanting cocaine inside the abdomen of a dog."It's a brutal thing, really brutal," said Inspector Harold Badaracco at JFK. "I couldn't imagine it because I didn't think anybody could be so cruel. They obviously were going to kill the dog."Customs agents said that Friday, a 4-year-old female English sheep dog who was "malnourished and really lethargic" showed up on a flight from Colombia.

MINNIE Colclough went to Jamaica and met her true love in a nightclub. Her beloved soon became her betrothed; and she returned to Jamaica to celebrate Valentine's Day of 1999 with the Jamaican lad, who works as a carpenter. Colclough returned on March 16.But not without incident. U.S. customs agents saw not a woman in love returning from visiting her fiance. They saw a potential menace. According to Colclough, they checked her luggage. Then, they checked her, body cavities and all.It wasn't the first time, the Baltimore County black woman said.

Investigations in the Sept. 11 terrorism and the anthrax attacks that followed have federal agents in Maryland stretched so thin that they say fewer federal crimes are being investigated - at least for now. Officials say many of the 200 FBI agents assigned to Maryland and Delaware have been working full time on terrorism since Sept. 11 and have been drawn off cases they usually investigate, which range from white-collar crime to child pornography. "When Sept. 11 first happened, pretty much everybody was working on terrorism.