The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) has developed a new online reporting system for textile and apparel companies to report fraud they encounter in the marketplace to US Customs and Border Protection. The program is designed to help improve the policing of illegal textile and apparel imports.

In announcing the program, NCTO Vice President Mike Hubbard said: “Customs fraud has risen to become the number-one issue we get calls about from our member companies. Our members are extremely frustrated because they see high levels of fraud without a corresponding increase in Customs activity.”

NCTO says increasing problems have developed particularly with trade involving NAFTA/CAFTA-DR countries.

NCTO has been meeting with Customs officials regarding what that organization says is a “ sharp drop-off of seizures and detentions” resulting from the textile division being moved out of the Operations Division into a policy branch and the failure of Customs to hire new textile enforcement personnel.

The NCTO reporting form, developed in consultation with Customs officials, is available at  www.ncto.org under “Report Customs Fraud.”

January 15, 2008