Global Plastics LLC: The Resin Importers That Reported Themselves

Global Plastics LLC and Marco Polo International LLC agreed to pay $6,896,094 in a customs fraud settlement over allegations of false country of origin declarations and incorrect customs values for Chinese resin. The MGI International subsidiaries reported themselves. Their civil agreement gave them cooperation credit, but reporting the problem still left a bill to settle.

The Global Plastics LLC Customs Settlement

The settlement covered alleged false origin declarations, missing origin marks, incorrect values and unpaid duties and fees. The Department of Justice announced the agreement on July 23, 2025, resolving False Claims Act allegations against the resin importers.

Global Plastics, based in Manchester, New Hampshire, and Marco Polo, based in Melville, New York, import and sell plastic resin. As the importers of record, they were responsible for the declared value and origin, required markings, and payment of duties and fees. The agreement covers entries from May 17, 2019 through January 9, 2025, involving products manufactured in China and other countries.

False Origin and Manufacturer Information

The United States alleged that the companies misrepresented the manufacturer and country of origin of certain imports, including declaring Taiwan, Saudi Arabia or the United States instead of China to avoid Section 301 duties. The country written on the entry determined which duty bill Customs saw.

Missing Country-of-Origin Marks

The agreement separately alleges that certain imports lacked required country-of-origin markings and that the companies failed to pay the additional marking duties. That allegation concerns the marks on the imports, alongside the country declared in the paperwork.

Incorrect Customs Values

The United States alleged that certain entries declared incorrect values so that less duty would be owed. For a resin buyer or finance employee, the useful comparison is between the purchase and payment records and the value that reached Customs.

Unpaid Duties and Processing Fees

The agreement alleges failures to declare and pay Section 301 duties and, on some entries, ordinary most-favored-nation duties and merchandise processing fees. The covered tariff lines include polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene. The allegations reach both the information used to calculate the bill and the charges left unpaid.

Why Chinese Origin Changed the Duty Bill

Section 301 duties follow the goods’ country of origin, rather than the country from which they were exported, as Customs explains in its tariff guidance. A shipping route and a manufacturing origin answer different questions.

The August 2018 tariff notice imposed an additional 25% duty on listed Chinese products, including resin tariff lines that appear in the settlement’s appendix, on top of ordinary duties. The wider tariff pressure rose again when a May 2019 notice raised the additional rate on the September 2018 list from 10% to 25%. Against that tariff background, the alleged substitutions of Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and the United States had a direct purpose: avoiding the China duty.

Origin marking creates a separate question. Production records explain where the resin was made. The goods and their containers show what the buyer was told about it.

Resin importers that declare the true origin and value have to price their goods with the full duty bill in mind. Evading that bill cheats those competitors and taxpayers.

What Evidence Is Needed to Prove Fraud?

For false resin declarations, the useful evidence connects the same shipment’s production, purchase, payment and customs entry, together with what people inside the business knew. We compare resin purchase records and records of where it was produced with the customs entries to establish how the declared origin and value affected the duties paid. The markings on the goods and their duty treatment are part of that comparison.

The commercial invoice, bill of lading, carrier manifest and customs entry summary are separate records, often prepared by different parties. A supplier’s description, a logistics employee’s shipment record and the broker’s filing can therefore give us different views of the same resin purchase.

The value comparison reaches beyond the invoice sent to the broker. Purchase orders, payments and separate charges help explain what went into the declared amount. Broker instructions and internal correspondence can show who supplied the information and what happened when someone questioned it.

Why Shipment Numbers Matter

A 2020 paper from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies, Are Customs Records Consistent Across Countries? Evidence from the U.S. and Colombia, matched trading companies much more successfully than individual shipments. It recommended invoice and manifest numbers as identifiers to connect the records. That is a useful distinction for an insider: knowing the supplier is the start, and connecting that supplier’s sale to a particular customs entry is where the detail becomes valuable.

The World Customs Organization’s 2015 paper Mirror Analysis and Revenue Fraud described how differences between countries’ reported exports and imports can help target inspections for value, quantity and origin problems. A competitor’s view of trade flows can point us toward the transactions to examine. The purchase, shipment and entry records let us follow them.

A competitor brought the whistleblower case against Sigma Corporation, which marketed Chinese welded outlets while declaring steel couplings. A jury found Sigma liable. Product knowledge connected what the business sold to what its customs paperwork said.

What Did the Companies Disclose and Change?

Global Plastics and Marco Polo received cooperation credit for disclosing the matter, sharing their investigation and changing their practices. They disclosed first to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in May 2024 and later to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Hampshire.

The agreement credits an independent investigation, disclosure of facts the government did not know, and a shared analysis of potential damages. The companies also disciplined personnel and improved compliance procedures.

An insider may know how those findings compare with the entries and decisions they saw. If your company’s internal review leaves out shipments or instructions you know about, speak with our whistleblower experts about that gap.

What Other Customs Fraud Cases Show

Other customs cases show why the original entry, the information behind it and the decision to correct it each matter.

Grosfillex and the Errors Left Uncorrected

Grosfillex settled allegations that it falsely declared Chinese aluminum furniture components outside antidumping and countervailing duty coverage. Its settlement agreement also alleged that earlier declarations stayed uncorrected after the company learned they were false. That is the failure to correct a known customs error an insider may recognize after the original shipment is long gone.

The employee who brought that case alleged a deliberate choice about the past imports:

In no case, however, does Grosfillex intend to self-report that, for years, it has been importing extruded aluminum products from China and failing to pay AD/CVD duties as required by the Orders.

The whistleblower’s allegation in United States of America ex rel. Edward Wisner v. Grosfillex, Inc., complaint, paragraph 43

That allegation makes the contrast with Global Plastics’ reported disclosures concrete. What management does after learning of the unpaid duty is part of the story.

Yogibo and the Invoice the Broker Never Received

In its settlement agreement, Yogibo admitted giving its broker only the lower commercial invoice while its supplier separately charged for inland freight, design services and quality control. The finance records and the broker’s records told different stories about the same purchases. Those admitted facts show why an incorrect-value allegation leads us back to the separate charges and the information passed to the broker.

Ceratizit and the Separate Marking Bill

Ceratizit USA settled allegations that Chinese tungsten carbide products went through Taiwan and were declared Taiwanese to avoid Section 301 duties. Its agreement separately alleged missing origin marks and unpaid marking duties. The declaration and the physical marking were distinct parts of that case, just as they are distinct allegations in the resin settlement.

What an Insider Knows Beyond the Disclosure

We also examine what the company discovered, what it disclosed and what it corrected. An insider may know both the original entry problem and the decisions made after it came to light. In a resin business, that may mean knowing which supplier or factory records contradicted the entries, which shipments the internal review covered, and whether the findings reached the people preparing subsequent declarations.

A person who brings a False Claims Act case can receive a customs fraud whistleblower reward of 15% to 30% of the money the government recovers. If your company’s internal findings and its account to the government tell different stories, that is a conversation to have with us.

Sources

Customs Errors Still Inside the Company

If you work in resin purchasing, finance, logistics or compliance and know why the declarations differ from the company’s own records, speak with our whistleblower experts about what the company knows. We build the case around the production history, the money and the decisions behind the entries, bring in customs fraud whistleblower lawyers who understand origin and valuation disputes, and stay beside you through the outcome.

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