Illegal clothes seized in Oakland

The shipment arrived in the port Nov. 18 in a shipping container from a vessel that departed from Indonesia, according to the agency. The importer submitted documents to Customs and Border Protection officers describing the shipment's contents as men's cotton knit T-shirts that were manufactured in Indonesia. However, when officers conducted research on the shipment, they discovered that the items were actually made in China and sent to Indonesia to be shipped to the U.S., according to the agency. The T-shirts, with an estimated worth of more than $900,000, were seized for violation of bi-lateral trade agreements that set a limit on the amount of textile goods that Chinese companies are allowed to import into the U.S. The imported goods were an effort to circumvent the trade agreement, according to the agency, since the limit had already been reached on men's knitted T-shirts. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency "works diligently to detect and seize illegal imports entering the country, while facilitating legitimate trade," Area Port Director John Leonard said in a prepared statement. "Enforcing U.S. trade agreements remain a high priority for CBP. These treaties seek to ensure that U.S. companies are able to compete on a level playing field in the domestic consumer market," Leonard said. The agency has seized 358 textile shipments, valued at $52 million, for quota or visa violations throughout the nation in the fiscal year of 2008, as well as initiating 471 commercial fraud penalties assessed at $208 million.