New Mexican Customs force doesn’t impede trade

   U.S. customs brokers and logistics companies that manage international shipments across the Southwest border say Mexico’s surprise move to swap out its entire border inspection force has not had any perceptible impact on trade flows so far.
   Mexico’s customs agency on Sunday unexpectedly terminated its entire 700-person force of inspectors and replaced them with 1,454 newly vetted and trained agents in an effort to eliminate corruption as the government of Felipe Calderon continues its aggressive 30-month campaign to crush Mexican drug cartels, which have evolved into mafia-style organizations controlling many aspects of the economy. Drug gangs have murdered about 13,000 people, mostly rivals and police, as they fight to control their territory.
   The Mexican military was dispatched to airports and border stations to collect firearms from the terminated customs inspectors, the Associated Press reported.
   The primary mission of the new agents at the country’s 49 ports of entry is to detect contraband such as guns, drugs, cash and merchandise smuggled to avoid import fees. Stopping high levels of pirated and cheap goods from being smuggled into the country at the expense of domestic industries is also a top priority.
   The new agents, selected from a pool of 8,500 applicants, are better educated and have undergone a rigorous selection process that included background checks, and drug and psychological tests, as well as months of training, according to a fact sheet provided by a Mexican official.
   The previous agents were not rehired when their contracts expired. They can reapply for positions if they meet the stricter hiring criteria, the statement said.
   Southern border brokers said the Mexican changeover has not impacted trade and could end up being a positive development.
   “My imports and exports kept on flowing as normal,” Rudolfo Delgado, co-owner of Rodel International in Laredo, Texas, told American Shipper.
   The fiscal police that conduct inspections are not the import specialists that classify the goods for tax purposes. Replacing the import specialists would impede trade flows until the new personnel got up to speed with the technical complexities of the customs code, according to logistics professionals.
   Doubling the border force will make it more difficult for criminals to smuggle contraband in and out of Mexico, Delgado said.
   “From what I’ve seen there hasn’t been much change in service,” Federico “Kiko” Zuniga, board chairman of the National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America and head of Laredo, Texas-based F. Zuniga Inc., said.
   Other brokers in Laredo and Brownsville, Texas, also said they had not experienced any shipment delays.
   Mexican Customs has taken steps in the past to combat corruption among border officers, including firing most supervisors in 2001, requiring new recruits to undergo lie detector tests, moving from paper to automated systems and hiring younger inspectors with college degrees to professionalize the force, but the wholesale force substitution is the most sweeping change to date. More than 70 percent of the new agents are university educated, the government statement said.
   Corruption has been an ongoing problem for Mexican Customs, which ranked 32nd out of 35 public services that are facilitated by bribes in a 2007 national corruption index. The U.S. State Department 2008 Human Rights Report said that there are credible allegations of customs officials being involved in aiding human traffickers.
      New officers were taught about the legalities of customs and trade issues, how to use high-tech equipment such as X-ray and gamma ray machines to scan vehicles and commercial trucks for illegal goods, interview techniques, and firearms use, among other skills, the fact sheet said. Teams of dogs that can detect drugs, currency and other hidden materials are also being increased.

Ahern

   U.S. Customs and Border Protection has significantly increased training for Mexican Customs personnel as part of the Obama administration’s Southwest border initiative to help the Mexican government battle the cartels. It is likely that some of the new recruits received training from U.S. specialists, although a Department of Homeland Security spokesman did not reply to an information request on the matter.
   Mexican authorities physically inspect about 10 percent of inbound passenger and commercial traffic, but new databases, technology and risk management techniques are expected to help them operate more efficiently.
   CBP is helping Mexican Customs modernize by providing training, curricula and technology, CBP Acting Commissioner Jayson Ahern said last month. Mexican Customs has installed license plate readers, weigh scales and a computer system to help identify smugglers and manage cross-border movements.
   In June, DHS officials extended a mutual assistance agreement to improve cooperation, technical assistance and trade facilitation efforts with Mexican Customs. — Eric Kulisch