On October 1, the Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division issued Directive 26-12, naming tariff evasion, the "importation of goods or services," and forced labor one of just four corporate-enforcement priorities for federal prosecutors nationwide — in the same tier as health care fraud and government-contract fraud (Gibson Dunn). For a small or mid-sized importer, that's a real change in who's paying attention: this isn't a CBP compliance memo. It's the Justice Department telling its own prosecutors, in writing, that trade fraud belongs next to health care fraud on the list of cases worth building.
It isn't theoretical, either. DOJ's cross-agency Trade Fraud Task Force, launched with the Department of Homeland Security in August 2025, had already topped $1 billion in recoveries, penalties, forfeitures, and charged losses by July 2026 — in under a year (IRS Criminal Investigation). Directive 26-12 tells prosecutors to keep going, and spells out exactly what to weigh when they do.
Why it matters
Most importers think of customs risk as a CBP problem: an entry gets flagged, a Form 28 request for information shows up, maybe a penalty notice follows later. Directive 26-12 makes clear that's no longer the ceiling. DOJ officials have said directly that a disclosure made only to CBP "does not, by itself, count as a voluntary self-disclosure to DOJ" (Holland & Knight) — meaning a company can do everything right with its broker and its CBP paperwork and still face a separate, harder conversation with federal prosecutors, and increasingly, False Claims Act exposure with treble damages attached. And because the directive explicitly tells the Fraud Division to build whistleblower incentives that reach even people who took part in the misconduct themselves, the odds that a problem surfaces from inside your own supply chain — rather than getting caught first by your own audit — just went up.
The details
Directive 26-12 sits on top of a framework DOJ has been assembling for more than a year. The Trade Fraud Task Force paired DOJ with CBP, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, and more than 30 U.S. Attorney's Offices. An August 13, 2026 priorities memo from Fraud Division chief Colin McDonald first flagged "global trade and commerce" as a top focus, and an August 18 rule change gave the Fraud Division concurrent authority over most fraud offenses (Gibson Dunn). Directive 26-12 followed on October 1, listing ten factors prosecutors should weigh heavily — including schemes lasting three years or more, conduct spanning three or more federal districts, and losses of $25 million or more. A follow-up, Directive 26-13, issued October 7–8, pushes prosecutors toward an "all angles" approach: pursuing civil, criminal, and tariff penalties on the same conduct at the same time, rather than picking one track (Gibson Dunn).
The dollar figures behind this are already real, not hypothetical. In May 2026, Perfectus Aluminum and several affiliated companies agreed to pay $549.5 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that they disguised more than 2.2 million Chinese aluminum extrusions as finished pallets to dodge antidumping and countervailing duties — on top of a separate $1.8 billion criminal restitution order tied to the same scheme from an earlier conviction (Morgan Lewis). In December 2025, Ceratizit USA paid $54.4 million after allegedly routing Chinese-origin tungsten carbide through Taiwan to avoid Section 301 tariffs (Foley & Lardner). And in an indictment unsealed in December 2025, prosecutors charged a Bay Area tile and cabinet importer, its owner, and a licensed customs broker over an alleged scheme to misclassify and reroute Chinese quartz surfaces, wooden cabinets, and ceramic tile through Malaysia to dodge duties that in some cases exceeded 300% — alleging more than $109 million in evaded duties across roughly 520 shipments, plus a separate CBP civil penalty notice of about $222.5 million (U.S. Attorney's Office, N.D. Cal.).
Three very different scales of enforcement dollars, all live at once.
THE ENFORCEMENT TIMELINE, AT A GLANCE
August 2025. DOJ and DHS launch the Trade Fraud Task Force, pairing CBP, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, and 30+ U.S. Attorney's Offices.
August 13, 2026. A Fraud Division priorities memo names "global trade and commerce" a top enforcement focus for the first time; an August 18 rule change gives the Division concurrent authority over most fraud offenses.
October 1, 2026 — Directive 26-12. Tariff evasion, importation fraud, and forced labor are formally named one of DOJ's four top corporate-enforcement priorities nationwide.
October 7–8, 2026 — Directive 26-13. A follow-up directive pushes an "all angles" approach, pursuing civil, criminal, and tariff penalties on the same conduct in parallel.
What to do about it
Don't assume a CBP disclosure covers you with DOJ. A prior disclosure or penalty settlement with CBP doesn't automatically qualify as a voluntary self-disclosure to DOJ, and the two agencies are now explicitly coordinating rather than operating in separate lanes.
Audit entries before someone else does. Classification, declared value, country of origin, FTA/USMCA claims, and antidumping/countervailing duty exposure are the recurring fact patterns in every case above — especially anything moving through a third country on its way here.
Document your actual supply chain, not just your paperwork. Verify where goods are genuinely made and processed, not just what the commercial invoice says, particularly for any supplier relationship that changed countries recently without a clear production reason.
Build or test an internal reporting channel. The directive's whistleblower language explicitly reaches people who took part in the underlying misconduct, so assume someone inside your supply chain already knows about a problem before you find it yourself.
Loop in counsel before you answer a CBP Form 28. Responses are typically due within 30 days of the form date, and a careful, complete first response is also the clearest record you can build if DOJ's office ever gets involved later.
If you find something real, get advice on self-disclosure early. The credit DOJ offers for voluntary self-disclosure is genuine, but it shrinks fast once the government starts asking its own questions first.
Keep an eye on
Directive 26-13's "all angles" approach is the next thing worth watching: it signals DOJ wants civil False Claims Act, criminal, and CBP penalty tracks running in parallel rather than picking one, which changes the calculus on early cooperation. Also worth watching is whether the Corporate Enforcement Section starts showing up as a named co-investigator on CBP's own trade cases, instead of picking them up only after a referral lands on its desk.
Got questions? Drop a comment below. Ask our licensed customs brokers, and they'll get right back to you here in the comments.
THE TRADE TALK DESK
Trade, tariffs, and duties — explained plainly.