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UPDATE

Car and Passengers found. Just stupid Seattlites with a nice new crispy $500 dollar ticket.

LATEST NEWS FROM PORT ANGELES
Four who ran Customs checkpoint found in Port Angeles hotel, fined $500
By Randy Trick, Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES - Four people who failed to stop at a Customs checkpoint when disembarking from the MV Coho were found in a Port Angeles hotel after midnight.
The car carrying the four people - who officers declined to identify - got off the ferry from Victoria at about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday.
Mike Milne, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, said the group -all American citizens - had been pre-screened by Customs and Border Patrol agents in Victoria before boarding the ferry.
Citizenship verification is done in Victoria.
On the U.S. side, in Port Angeles, Customs officers check all vehicles disembarking the Coho in covered lanes between the ferry landing and Railroad Avenue.
Wrong lane
P The driver of the car, who was from Seattle, either thought he had been cleared in Victoria or mistakenly got in the wrong lane at the checkpoint in Port Angeles and drove through, Milne said.
The vehicle, a 2005 Toyota 4Runner, did not speed through the checkpoint to avoid officers, contrary to initial reports to the Port Angeles Police Department, Milne said.
“The guy came off the ferry after being cleared by pre-clearance officers in Victoria, then apparently, either inadvertently or not, took a lane that was not really an exit lane,” Milne said.
“Anecdotally, it doesn’t happen very often. ‘Rare or seldom’ is a better description.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents found the four registered at a Port Angeles hotel.
Shortly after midnight, federal agents contacted the group, interviewed them and determined they were not a terrorist or smuggling threat, Milne said.
Driver fined
But the driver broke a federal law by failing to report his entrance to the United States, Milne said. The Customs agents filled out the paperwork to seize the man’s car, then fined him $5,000.
The agents then reduced the fine to $500. The man paid the reduced fine and the agents filled out the paperwork to return his car, Milne said.
But initial reports to and from the PenCom dispatch center did not specify whether the car was considered a threat or not.
The Port Angeles Police Department was alerted shortly after 9:20 p.m. and searched for the car as it headed east away from the ferry terminal.
Officers could not find it and after a short time figured it had left town.
The State Patrol was alerted, but no troopers were in the area, said Lt. Clint Casebolt, spokesman for the agency.
Milne said that after the car exited the checkpoint, the Port Angeles Customs office contacted the Customs Security Center in Blaine, which records the video feeds from the checkpoints, and the prescreening office in Victoria, Milne said.
The border officers in Canada said the driver and passengers were prescreened and did not appear on any criminal or watch lists, Milne said.
Had their names raised any red flags, they either would not have been allowed to board the ferry, or officers on the Port Angeles side would have been waiting, Milne said.