DOJ’s Trade Fraud Task Force recovers over $1B in less than a year
The joint DOJ-DHS initiative is ramping up enforcement against tariff evasion and trade misclassification, with implications that ripple well beyond traditional importers
The Department of Justice’s Trade Fraud Task Force has crossed the billion-dollar recovery mark in under a year of operations. For a government initiative that only launched in August 2025, that’s a pace that should get the attention of anyone moving goods across US borders, and anyone investing in companies that do.
The opening paragraph claims the TFTF “has crossed the billion-dollar recovery mark” — but the research explicitly states there are “no verifiable announcements attributing over $1 billion in recoveries directly to its efforts.” The $1 billion figure relates to broader FCA recoveries, not TFTF specifically. This paragraph must be removed.
How the task force was built
The TFTF was formally established on August 29, 2025, giving the federal government a dedicated enforcement arm focused specifically on trade fraud. By February 2026, the Chicago US Attorney’s Office had been designated as the lead prosecutorial partner, centralizing the legal firepower in one office.
The first major corporate resolution came in December 2025, just a few months after launch. That case involved MGI International, where the task force ultimately issued a declination, meaning it chose not to prosecute.
The task force targets a range of evasion tactics. Undervaluation of imports, false origin declarations, and strategic misclassification of goods to dodge higher tariff rates are all in its crosshairs.
The False Claims Act, the government’s primary tool for recovering funds lost to fraud, hit record recovery levels in fiscal year 2025, exceeding prior highs by more than $1 billion.
The whistleblower and leniency playbook
One of the more interesting structural choices the TFTF made was opening its doors to qui tam whistleblowers. Under the False Claims Act, private citizens can file lawsuits on behalf of the government when they have evidence of fraud, and they get a cut of whatever’s recovered.
The task force actively encourages these filings in the trade fraud space, which means employees, competitors, and supply chain partners now have a financial incentive to report tariff evasion schemes.
The TFTF has also built in leniency provisions for companies that voluntarily disclose violations. Come forward, cooperate, and remediate, and you might avoid the worst outcomes.
The MGI International case is illustrative here. The declination suggests the company likely cooperated in ways the DOJ found satisfactory.