“After 2001, OFAC opened more investigations and imposed more penalties for embargo violations, such as buying Cuban cigars, than for violations of other sanctions such as those on Iran.”

One example cited in the report was of inspections at Miami International Airport, where 20 percent of all arrivals from Cuba had their baggage searched while only three percent of arrivals from other locations received similar scrutiny. “This intensive inspection” and “resulting seizures of small amounts of Cuban-made products” occupied a majority of the Customs facilities in Miami, “straining the agency's resources for . . . keeping terrorists, criminals and inadmissible aliens out of the country while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel.”

The report was requested by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a critic of the Bush Administration’s extra-hard-line against Cuba. The GAO report suggested that going forward, the Customs and Treasury departments “reassess” their priorities to “effectively” balance the embargo with “protecting homeland security.”

In other words, look for terrorists and explosives and not Cuban rum and cigars!

The Bering brand and the impact of OFAC:
Lew Rothman of J-R Cigars and the Cigars by Santa Clara wholesale operation noted our story yesterday about the possible purchase of Swisher International by Reynolds American, but advised that the Bering trademark no longer belongs to Swisher.

“It is owned 50/50 by Santa Clara and Plasencia Cigars,” he wrote. “We assumed the trademark over 5 years ago.” Thanks for the correction and our apologies for the error.

Rothman also explained the difficulties experienced by some Bering fans with supply, as importation of the brand from Honduras has been problematic, thanks to issues surrounding the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba:

“The last two shipments of Berings were held, as government analysis said that the tobacco content is of Cuban Origin,” he wrote in an e-mail. “That is not so, however, it does demonstrate the difficulty, if not impossibility, of determining tobacco origin due to the mobility of tobacco seed and the similarities between regions of Nicaragua and Honduras to areas in Cuba.

“The last Bering shipment came through – but it was with the aid of a lawyer. The next big shipment will probably come around Feb. 1st. That's over a half million Berings – and we'll see what happens then. The last shipment was held so long that we sent the whole thing back to Honduras because we were afraid of the two-month ordeal, out of humidification and temperature control. They all had to be inspected and re-packed to make sure there was no beetle damage.”