U.S. CUSTOMS DEPLOYS CSI TEAM TO LE HAVRE

U.S. CUSTOMS DEPLOYS CSI TEAM TO LE HAVRE

   U.S. Customs has deployed four officers to the French port of Le Havre to begin the pilot phase of the agency’s Container Security Initiative.

   CSI, which was launched earlier this year, pushes container security away from U.S. ports of entry and closer to cargo origin ports and load centers, and calls for advance cargo manifest information filed to the agency prior to loading on vessels overseas.

   CSI also places four to 12 U.S. Customs officers in strategic overseas ports to assist in identifying high-risk containers. In late November, U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said the agency would begin to accelerate its deployment of officers to get the CSI effort moving forward.

   “I am grateful to the French government for aggressively implementing CSI,” Bonner said in a statement Tuesday.

   A U.S. Customs CSI team is in place in Rotterdam. Other U.S. Customs officers will soon be deployed to Singapore, Antwerp and Hong Kong.

   Nine countries have agreed to participate with U.S. Customs under CSI. The agreements cover 15 ports, all among the top 20 ports that handle containerized shipments bound to the United States.