On August 29, 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched a new Trade Fraud Task Force, which will leverage resources from DOJ’s Civil and Criminal Divisions as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enforce tariff and duties evasion, smuggling, and other import violations. The initiative furthers the Trump Administration’s “America First Trade Policy” announced on Inauguration Day and in Executive Order 14243, which promotes information-sharing between agencies to support the administration’s overall goals of combating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Goals of the Trade Fraud Task Force

For several months, DOJ has been shifting resources toward trade fraud and tariff evasion. In May 2025 the head of DOJ’s Criminal Division identified trade and customs fraud as a “high impact area” that would be prioritized by the agency moving forward. To that end, in July 2025, DOJ announced that personnel from the Civil Division’s consumer protection branch would join together with the Criminal Division’s market integrity and major frauds unit to create the new Market, Government, Consumer Fraud (MGCF) unit focusing on trade fraud cases. 

The new Trade Fraud Task Force will be a collaboration between DOJ—presumably involving the newly created MGCF unit—and DHS—particularly, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). By sharing expertise and resources, the agencies intend to both increase and streamline trade fraud prosecutions. Also, DOJ’s decision to devote resources from the Criminal Division to the task force shows that the government is interested in pursuing significant penalties (which include monetary penalties and, in some cases, the possibility of prison) for trade fraud.

Methods of Enforcement

While the precise enforcement scheme that will be utilized by the Trade Fraud Task Force remains unclear, DOJ has indicated that the new unit will prosecute trade violations under the Tariff Act of 1930, the False Claims Act, and Title 18’s trade fraud and conspiracy provisions. These laws offer a range of civil and criminal penalties to prosecutors. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) also allows the government to seek criminal sanctions for trade fraud and tariff evasion (50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–05).

In announcing the Trade Fraud Task Force, DOJ “welcomed” the assistance of whistleblowers who may come forward with information about fraud schemes and import violations. Whistleblowers may play an important role in trade fraud enforcement because the Criminal Division recently expanded its Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program to include trade and customs fraud, and because trade fraud claims may be actionable directly by parties with knowledge of the wrongdoing under the FCA’s qui tam provisions. This continues the current administration’s trend of actively inviting and encouraging qui tam efforts and private citizen involvement more generally in carrying out priority enforcement agenda items.

What this means to you

The government’s recent enforcement and task force announcements make clear that trade, customs fraud and tariff evasion will remain a high enforcement priority under this administration, and that significant resources will be devoted to identifying and carrying out trade fraud enforcement. Importers, exporters, and other industry players now face scrutiny from DOJ, DHS, CBP, and HSI—possibly in tandem. The potential penalties for wrongdoing are steep and include, in addition to the traditional civil fines, treble damages for FCA violations as well as criminal sanctions (including potential prison time) under a variety of criminal statutes. Simultaneously, given shifting tariff applications and pending court challenges to those tariffs, the trade and tariff regulatory landscape remains complex under the current administration, further complicating the path to compliance for implicated entities. Companies should ensure they have robust trade compliance and due diligence programs in place and should develop or refresh action plans in the event of potential inquiries, enforcement activity and whistleblower complaints.