NORFOLK, Va. — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Norfolk have seized more than $120,000 worth of kitchen cabinets that were clandestinely imported from China, along with more than 5,000 upholstered folding chairs flagged as a fire hazard, according to the agency.
CBP said officers initially inspected the shipping container on May 18. The paperwork declared 10 kitchen cabinets valued at $500, plus 691 other items including metal ornaments, home decorations, storage boxes, and decorative panels. When officers opened the container, according to CBP, none of those other declared items were inside. Instead, they found 781 cartons of kitchen cabinets — a shipment bound for a Los Angeles address.
Officers detained the shipment and consulted trade specialists at CBP’s Consumer Products and Mass Merchandising Center of Excellence and Expertise, the agency said. CBP’s trade experts determined the cabinets were subject to anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws, which are designed to give U.S. manufacturers a fair shot against foreign goods sold below market value or backed by government subsidies. According to CBP, the cabinets were deliberately mismanifested and undervalued to evade duties and customs review. Officers seized the shipment on June 23 under federal customs law, and the trade experts appraised the cabinets at $123,554.
“Customs and Border Protection’s trade enforcement mission is designed to help level the playing field for United States-based businesses against bad actors who attempt to gain advantage by deliberately underpricing their products shipped to the U.S. or who grossly undervalue the cost of those shipments to evade paying a fair duty,” CBP Area Port Director Keri Brady of the Area Port of Norfolk-Newport News said in a statement. “CBP will continue to support economic fairness, protect domestic industry, and uphold the integrity of U.S. supply chains by targeting unfair trade practices and other schemes designed to cheat the system.”
In a separate seizure in early June, CBP officers in Norfolk seized 5,184 upholstered folding chairs that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission determined violated the Flammable Fabrics Act, the agency said. The chairs, appraised at roughly $35,000, were also headed from China to addresses in Los Angeles. According to CBP, this wasn’t the first such find at the port — officers seized another 2,600 upholstered folding chairs in April for the same violation.
CBP said the seizures reflect a broader trade enforcement push using increased bonding, enhanced targeting, and inspection of high-risk imports to disrupt fraudulent shipping schemes and protect U.S. supply chains.
Anyone with information about suspected trade fraud or intellectual property rights violations can report it to the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center at 1-866-IPR-2060.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
