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Smuggling is driven by wants and needs. The Confederacy needed guns to stay alive, and the speakeasies needed booze to stay in business. But less compelling products are smuggled too, supplying smaller markets with items craved by willing buyers.
People hunger after the craziest stuff but do not have the courage or skill to smuggle it themselves. So they either commission someone or go searching for someone in the business of handling smuggled goods. A person seeking an exotic antiquity might go to a gallery with a shady reputation, for example. A Cuban cigar fan may know of a “special” tobacconist.
Keeping illegal stuff out of the country is the job of several federal agencies. In the “old days,” the border patrol patrolled the border, the customs service checked your luggage and the immigration people stamped your passport. It’s not that easy anymore.
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, a great reshuffling of bureaucratic deck chairs occurred when the cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security was created.
The lead investigative agency is new, a combination of elements from several older organizations. It is called the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE for short. It was formed in March 2003 as the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. It combines elements of the former U.S. Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Federal Protective Service. ICE is akin to the FBI; you won’t see them until you are in deep trouble.
Other deck chairs were moved around too. For example, the CBP—the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bureau—was created from elements of the Department of Agriculture, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Customs Service. These are the uniformed officers checking luggage, stamping passports and patrolling borders. The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) was taken away from the Treasury Department and also put under the Department of Homeland Security.
In other words, the guns-and-glory guys went to ICE. The do-it-everyday guys are in the CBP. And the “Coasties” changed bosses too. While the deck chairs were rearranged, the major mission remained the same: stopping contraband.
For some desires, no store is convenient. Embargos, quotas and prohibitions add to exclusivity. Below are recent examples of people caught by ICE, the CBP and USCG, and are typical of the new breed of Florida smugglers. Some operate for their own benefit, while others feed a national supply chain. If the item of desire is on the “forbidden list,” it must be smuggled. What follows is a potpourri of the crazy things people want so bad, they’re willing to risk jail to possess them.
MISTRESS OF THE SKULL
A macabre 2006 incident shows the thin line between smuggling and legal international travel. Reuters news agency reported the CBP arrested a woman at the Fort Lauderdale airport on February 10 after finding a human head in her baggage but not on her customs declaration form. Oddly, it’s not illegal to travel with a human head in your luggage, so she was charged with “transporting hazardous material” because the skull still retained “organic material.” After a quick visit to the statute books, a second felony charge was filed, since she did not list the head on her customs declaration form. That made it smuggling.
Florida resident Myrlene Severe—a Haitian citizen—faced five years in prison on each count. Bond was set at $10,000, which she posted.
“Severe stated that she had obtained the package, which contained the human head, from a male in Haiti for use as a part of her voodoo beliefs,” the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida said in a statement reported by Reuters. “Severe also stated that the purpose of the package was to ward off evil spirits.”
Affidavits filed in the case indicated the skull, with black curly hair, was in a cotton rice bag along with a banana leaf, dirt, small stones and a rusty iron nail. Broward County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper determined the skull was from a black man about forty years old or younger who had been dead more than a year.
After a look at federal regulations, prosecutors added an additional charge for attempting to import a human head “without proper documentation.” Severe reached a deal with prosecutors to avoid fifteen years in prison and pled guilty to a misdemeanor for “improper storage of human remains.” The fate of the skull is unknown.
Dave Barry, the irrepressible Miami Herald humorist, asked what all the excitement was about. It was just, he wrote, “carrion luggage.”
COUNTERFEIT CIGARS
The smuggling connection between Florida and Cuba is centuries old. Today’s contraband is cigars, the famed Cuban Cohibas, Partigas and other legendary brands. They are forbidden because of the trade embargo placed on Cuba in 1962 by President John Kennedy.
Kennedy’s press secretary at the time, Pierre Salinger, told an anecdote about the imposition of the embargo. In the Oval Office, Kennedy asked, “Pierre, did you get those boxes for me?”
“Yes, Mr. President. 1,100 Cuban cigars.”
“Excellent,” said Kennedy. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a pen and signed the embargo.
The law smugglers violate is much older than the Cuban embargo. It is the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, giving the president the power to restrict trade with America’s foes.
Only Cuba, Iran and North Korea are under embargo today. While there is no demand for North Korean goods, there is lively interest in fine Cuban tobacco. Demand is so strong that a flourishing trade in smuggled cigars is well established. Unfortunately, demand is so strong smugglers are shipping counterfeits in addition to “the real McCoy.”
The economics are simple. Cuba is a communist state with a demand economy. Production of bona fide Cuban cigars is tightly controlled to keep prices high. While styles and sizes of cigars vary enormously, a box of the genuine article from a government-licensed store in Havana costs $400 or much more.
Every cab driver in Havana will offer you a box of “genuine Cubans” for much less. The box will look authentic, and unless you are a true connoisseur of fine tobacco, the smoke will be robust and tasty. But not nearly as robust and tasty as the real thing. Your cab driver may charge you only $50 per box. Or maybe even $200, depending on how much of a sucker you appear to be.
The Cuban economy resides mostly “underground,” and the cigar business is no exception. Furniture makers also make authentic-looking cigar boxes. Printers make labels. Men, women and children across the island roll counterfeit Cuban cigars using inferior filler and wrapper tobacco every day.
A pensioner receiving twenty dollars per month can roll two hundred cigars a day, enough to fill ten boxes. Paid a dime apiece, the pensioner has doubled his or her monthly income in a day. It is estimated that only about 10 percent of Cuban cigars on the world market are authentic.
Because the United States is the only nation with an economic embargo against Cuba, nationals of any other country can visit the island and return home with boxes of “real Cuban cigars.” These can be wholesaled to local tobacconists well below the rate charged by the Cuban government’s authorized distributors. The “bootlegs” are then resold at retail to the public for a significant premium but still below the price at the Cuban-authorized shops. In the United States, the trade is totally underground.
While Cuban law prohibits tourists from exporting more than seven boxes, the authorities (who also live on a pittance) are usually agreeable—for a gratuity—to overlook a tourist’s ignorance of Cuban export law.
The Cuban government turns a blind eye to the practice because it doesn’t affect the prices it charges for the authentic product. And the counterfeiting and smuggling operation pumps badly needed hard currency into the black market, which eventually winds up back in the government’s coffers. And it expands Cuba’s tobacco industry. Everybody wins but the ultimate smoker-consumer.
The U.S.-Florida smuggling of cigars is not immune from the counterfeit trade. Only an experienced smoker can tell the difference between the counterfeit and real article—both are made from Cuban tobacco, after all. The real issue is prestige, not the color of the ash (the tip-off: a legitimate, state-approved Cuban has a darker ash, not bone white).
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security takes a dim view of Cuban cigar smuggling, real or fake. While most smugglers simply see their cargo confiscated, occasionally a smuggler will take a hard fall and end up in prison.
In June 2002, Richard Connors, a Chicago lawyer, received thirty-seven months in federal prison for his cigar-smuggling efforts. He had traveled regularly to Havana since 1996. From press reports based on court documents, Connors was buying fakes and selling at real prices. The Associated Press reported witnesses said, “Connors went to Cuba by way of Canada and Mexico almost monthly, bought cigars and brought them home with him. They testified that he bought cigars at $25 to $60 a box and sold them in the United States for up to $400 a box.”
Conners could have saved his travel budget by flying to Florida instead. Both fakes and the real thing are readily available if arrests in the mid-1990s are any indication.
In August 1995, the coast guard stopped a powerboat heading to Fort Lauderdale from the Bahamas. It was carrying 122 boxes. The same month, Richard Sperandio was busted in Key West while unloading his boat. He told authorities he bought 104 boxes at Marina Hemingway, the yacht harbor just west of Havana. He said he paid $3,600 ($36/box) and planned to sell them for $28,000 ($250/box). He received a year’s probation and 50 hours of community service.
In May 1996, two Bahamians successfully smuggled almost 3,000 Cuban cigars in their luggage through Miami International Airport and began selling them around the city. A Miami hotelier tipped police, who found 114 boxes in their room. They were deported. One month later, a Miami man was arrested in Arizona for selling 2,000 Cuban cigars. He entered the country at Miami International and the cigars were shipped across the country.
David Adams, in the St. Petersburg Times on May 6, 1997, wrote about the reception two men received when they tied up at Marina Hemingway near Havana: “According to court papers, one of those arrested, a Beverly Hills BMW dealer, said that sales people just showed up on the dock in Cuba, bearing catalogs touting Cohibas, Montecristos and other prized cigars. He told the agents he bought them thinking they would make fine gifts for his customers.” The men were carrying 49 boxes containing 1,296 cigars hidden in closets and below deck in the bilge area.
Authorities say the odds of you being offered a bona fide Cuban cigar—at Marina Hemingway or your favorite cigar bar, tobacconist or upscale restaurant—are minimal because the counterfeits have proliferated like wildfire. To buy “the real McCoy,” Americans have three choices: smuggle the cigars from Cuba personally and buy only from a government store. Or you can go to a tobacconist (in another country, of course) authorized by the Cuban government and be prepared to pay staggering prices. Then you still have the problem of smuggling them back into the United States.
Or you can buy on the American black market and take your chances somebody hasn’t relabeled a $20 box of Hav-A-Tampas into $1,200 worth of Cohiba Sublimes. The website for CubanBest Cigars in Vancouver, British Columbia, offers a few suggestions on spotting fakes: “Smugglers are only interested in making money, and the preferred method is to buy boxes of counterfeit cigars for $25–50 and then resell them in the States for $400. Or another popular method, done from within the U.S., is to take bundled non-Cuban cigars, slap on a counterfeit label, box them up and sell them as the real deal,” someone named “Rod” wrote on the store’s website. He continued:
Try to buy from a tobacconist who has an authorized Habanos sticker in the shop window. Check for the warranty seal—the Cuban tax/seal stamp is applied to all boxes of Cuban cigars. In early 2000 an updated warranty seal started to appear. The new seal is on all boxes since 2000, so if the box was made before 2000, old seal—after 2000, new seal. The major differences between the two seals is easily seen—the new seal has a set of serial numbers in red lettering. Also, the new seal has only 5 field workers in the little oval picture. The old seal has no serial numbers and there are nine field workers in the oval picture.
As for the box itself, Ron advised checking the bottom for three notations: “Habanos s.a.—the s.a. is in small letters, not capitalized. HECHO EN CUBA—all capitalized encircled by a straight-sided oval. Totalmente a mano—written in script.” Top-notch smugglers know all this, of course.
Not only is the profit margin huge for both the smuggler and reseller—real or fake—but some are not smuggled at all. They’re produced in the United States, with forged bands and boxes. There are enough authentic Cuban cigars in circulation that counterfeiters have wonderful models from which to draw.
Smuggling Cuban cigars into Florida predates Communism. After the American Civil War, liquor and cigars were smuggled frequently into west coast ports like Cedar Key, St. Marks and Tampa to avoid customs duties.
The contraband came aboard regularly scheduled steamships operating between Key West and Havana. Often the smugglers were the same people who ran the blockade into the Confederacy. “The opportunity to make a few extra dollars by smuggling on their return trips from Cuba was not regarded as a serious infraction by those engaged in it, or even by most of their neighbors,” Jerrell Shofner wrote in his article “Smuggling Along the Gulf Coast of Florida During Reconstruction” in the Journal of the Tampa Historical Society.
OPERATION MAGIC CARPET
Iran too is under embargo. We don’t buy their oil (officially), but we still buy their (smuggled) rugs.
The rug holds a special place in Muslim culture. It is an object used in devotion, it is used to floor the tents of Bedouins and it is used to floor the palaces of pashas.
Rugs are found in mosques and in museums too. The craftsmanship of rug fragments four hundred years old continue to be admired. With proper conservation, a “good rug” will last for generations and centuries.
To learn about rugs requires patience and visits to many shops to see and feel any number of carpets. An appetite for hot sweet tea will be acquired too. Knots per inch, and which knot? Natural or artificial dyes, cotton, wool or silk, new or antique? The answers to these questions create connoisseurship among the rug cognoscenti and yet one more area of specialization for customs officials.
While every rug-making country praises its product, there is always grudging admiration for the Iranians. Coupled with an embargo, you should know what that means: smugglers are afoot.
The term “Operation Magic Carpet” has had many uses, from post–World War II demobilization to an Israeli airlift of Jews from Yemen in 1949. Today’s Operation Magic Carpet is shrouded in deep secrecy.
Our only information comes from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General semiannual report, October 1, 1994—March 31, 1995. The executive summary says:
On January 3, 1995, an individual who was not a Customs employee was arrested in Toronto, Canada, by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in cooperation with Customs’ Office of Internal Affairs and Customs’ Office of Investigations. In August 1994, the individual had paid a $25,000 bribe to an undercover Customs special agent for the illegal release of a seized shipment of Iranian rugs worth approximately $1 million. As part of a public corruption, smuggling, and fraud conspiracy undercover operation referred to as “Operation Magic Carpet,” the Office of Internal Affairs, the Office of Investigations, and Inspection and Control investigated the smuggling and fraudulent entry of prohibited Iranian carpets via bribery and false documents.
The document contains many more cases under investigation, and deep inside it says: “‘Operation Magic Carpet’ was terminated on November 18, 1994, with the arrest of an alleged carpet smuggler from Miami, Florida, who between December 1993 and November 1994 paid nearly $70,000 in bribes to allow Iranian origin goods to enter the United States or be released from customs seizure. The undercover operation was initiated after a supervisory customs inspector informed the Office of Internal Affairs and the Office of Investigations that the alleged carpet smuggler had made a bribe overture in December 1993.”
The name of the smuggler and the disposition of the case are unknown. Nor is there word of who received the $70,000 bribe or what happened to them. We do know for at least a year Mr. Rug Merchant was able to move his merchandise (at least a million dollars worth) into the American market. Did he sell those rugs in Miami?
HOT COINS AND OLD STATUES
In 1994 a Key West man found ancient coins while scuba diving on a shipwreck in the Red Sea between Africa and Saudi Arabia. It was more than pocket change; it was 132 pounds of ancient coins. Somehow he brought them back to the United States. And then didn’t know what to do with them.
He researched the coins through the Internet and realized maybe they were more valuable than he thought. Then he started making careful inquiries in numismatic chat rooms to determine if coin collectors might be interested in some of his unusual examples. His caution seemed to indicate he knew possession of his hoard wasn’t kosher.
He wasn’t discrete enough, though. Somebody tipped ICE agents, who expressed interest via e-mail in seeing some of the coins in person. The items matched a red notice posted by the Saudi government to Interpol. When the ICE agents rendezvoused with the coin finder in April 2005, they identified themselves and the coin finder surrendered his stash.
The coins were administratively forfeited and returned to the Saudi government on March 6, 2006. An ICE press release said, “‘These coins are treasured artifacts that reflect the cultural heritage of humanity as well as Saudi Arabia’s unique history as an ancient trade center and as the birthplace of Islam,’ said Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki Al-Faisal. ‘Their recovery and return to the Kingdom is an example of the deep friendship between Saudi Arabia and the United States and the respect the U.S. has for cultural heritage.’”
In another after-the-fact seizure of smuggled goods, while serving search warrants in September 2005, agents found 322 pre-Columbian artifacts, including one that was 3,500 years old. The raids followed a two-month joint investigation by ICE and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. One man was arrested.
The artifacts include pottery figurines, burial shrouds and gold jewelry from the Inca and pre-Incan civilizations of Peru. They were examined and authenticated by an art historian at Florida International University. The seizure is one of the largest ever for pre-Columbian works of art. One of the textiles is believed to be a burial shroud linked to ancient Peruvian royalty. The items were returned to the Peruvian government.
It’s small enough to put you in jail. And big enough to create an Interpol case. This coin was among 132 pounds of coins found in the Red Sea by a Florida resident. A sting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent the coins back to Saudi Arabia and the Floridian into federal custody. Courtesy Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Again, more thankful words in an ICE press release: “The Peruvian government views with high regard these recoveries of the World Cultural Heritage, in this specific case of artifacts from early Peruvian civilizations,” said Jorge E. Roman, consul general of Peru in Miami.
Smuggling of antiquities is a well-established practice worldwide. Many countries today are trying to reacquire these antiquities as part of their national patrimony. As these two cases show, federal and local agents are involved in helping find and return antiquities. Even though they were smuggled into the country successfully, the taint of the smuggler doesn’t wear off with time.
NEW THREADS, BAD THINKING
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, had a personal brush with smuggling in 1999. Customs agents in Atlanta busted his wife Columba for not declaring $19,000 in new clothes and jewelry she had bought in Paris. It was Jeb’s first year on the job and not a shining family moment.
Customs officials said she put $500 on her declaration form, but they found receipts in her purse for more. So they searched her luggage, and indeed she’d bought twenty-eight times $500 worth of fancy stuff. The fine was $4,100, triple the duty she would have paid if she had declared it.
Why would a Florida governor’s wife tempt fate by smuggling? It’s not the usual story. Jo Becker with the St. Petersburg Times reported on June 22, 1999: “Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday that his wife misled U.S. Customs officials about $19,000 in new clothing and jewelry she brought into the country because she didn’t want him to know how much she had spent on her five-day Paris shopping trip.”
Challenged by authorities, Columba Bush was stubborn about it. “Customs agents then found some shopping receipts in her purse. But Mrs. Bush declined the opportunity to change her declaration, Customs spokesman Patrick Jones said. After that, customs agents searched her luggage and found the merchandise. At that point Mrs. Bush confessed to all of her purchases, telling agents she did not answer truthfully at first because she did not want her husband to know how much she had spent, according to Bush spokesman Cory Tilley,” Becker reported. Governor Bush promised his wife a Paris vacation after the 1998 Florida gubernatorial campaign. He got more than he bargained for, in more ways than one.
She was allowed to keep the clothes and jewelry, the usual practice when fines are paid. When I say, “Everybody’s a smuggler in Florida,” I’m not kidding.