Very interesting. Thank you for the insights. Reading your explaination, caused me to reflect on the commercial truck with haz waste endorsements that were illegally acquired by middle-eastern men in the US and the survellence of haz waste cargo. Have there been any rumors about licensed customs brokers who don't seem to have quite the right credentials entering the business in the past few years, especially if they are of middle eastern background?
In the Detroit area, which has a huge Arab population, I'm not aware of any licensed customs brokers of Middle Eastern descent. I deal with a lot of my competition in one way or another on almost a daily basis and I don't believe that I've ever dealt with anyone of Middle Eastern descent working in the industry, at least in the Detroit area. I'm sure that there are brokers of Middle Eastern descent in other parts of the country, though.
P.S. Anything that is imported into the United States, with very few exceptions, is routed through a customs broker. It's one of those odd occupations that you don't really hear too much about, but is intimately involved in the commerce of the United States. For many years, I've felt that having an insider at a customs broker would be an effective way to smuggle just about anything you wanted into the country right under the noses of the authorities. There is always the chance that the scheme would be detected, just like any smuggling operation could be, but there's just something about performing covert operations in plain sight of the authorities that makes it harder to detect. It's kind of like when a judge subpoenas a company's records looking for one piece of paper and the company delivers ALL of their records to the judge in a semi-truck. The evidence you're looking for is right in front of you but you don't know where to begin to find it.