More on the UP Case

Here is an interesting article from JOC on the continuing effort by the United States to assess penalties against Union Pacific for its alleged negligence in allowing contraband to be smuggled into the U.S. via its trains from Mexico.

The theory is that UP is transmitting manifest data to Customs and that the manifest data is often wrong due to the fact that it fails to disclose the illegal drugs that UP does not even know are there. The proposed penalty is $33.6 million.  Another suit in Texas seeks $4.1 million.

I hereby declare that I may have a bigfoot, D. B. Cooper, and the Ark of the Covenant in my trunk, but I don't know that for certain.

Assuming UP is a C-TPAT member, isn't the better approach to kick it out of C-TPAT and figure out a way to increase inspections until UP, the Mexican railroad that control over the rail cars before they cross the border, and Customs and Border Protection can find a mutually agreeable way to sure up the security?

Comments

Rail Fan said…
What kind of measures does the government expect UP to take or is this just a way to look like they are taking some kind of action in light of all the recent media exposure on the border drug cartels?
Apr 1, 2009, 9:12:00 PM
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