BOISE – The Boise Cascade Company (Boise Cascade) pleaded guilty and was sentenced today for a felony violation of the Lacey Act for its role in a timber trafficking scheme to evade countervailing and anti-dumping duties. Boise Cascade was sentenced to pay a fine of $6,382,000, representing twice the gross profits it derived from the illegal wood at issue in this case, and implement a compliance plan. Boise Cascade is the third federal criminal enforcement action to come out of this large-scale duty evasion scheme.
“As I made clear at last week’s TIMBER Working Group Roundtable event hosted by ENRD, we must thwart efforts of foreign bad actors who engage in illegal timber mining to finance other illicit and dangerous activities,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. “Boise Cascade’s guilty plea is a significant step toward ending illegal timber shipments from entering our country, thereby bolstering American security and safeguarding American citizens from threats of transnational criminal organizations.”
“Boise Cascade either knew about or was willfully blind to the illegal importation of the plywood they were purchasing from Horizon Plywood,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “This scheme defrauded taxpayers of import duties and undercut law-abiding competitors by importing and selling between $25 million and $65 million worth of plywood products. By purchasing these illegal imports, Boise Cascade helped perpetuate the scheme.”…