Border guard

by Don Whitehead

The bars were taken to the New York laboratory for examination. There seemed to be no way to identify them because the serial numbers—which are stamped into each bar of gold and recorded by the government—had been hacked and gouged from the soft metal. But the laboratory discovered a method—still secret—by which they were able to read the numbers on each of the bars. This information was turned over to the Secret Service, and Secret Service agents were able to track down the man who had made the original purchase of the bars.

Part of the laboratories’ job is to watch for improper classification of imports by shippers who hope to slip them into the country under a lower rate of duty than the Tariff Act provides for. As aids in this work the chemists have spectrographs (used for the most part in analyzing metals), X-ray diffractometers, electrolytic machines and other instruments enabling them to break down and identify the component parts of materials brought into the country.

By use of the diffractometer and X-ray, the laboratories have been able to determine in innumerable cases that shipments have been improperly classified by the shippers either intentionally or unintentionally. At any rate, the shipments have been uniformly reclassified at higher rates of duty, saving the U.S. Treasury many thousands of dollars.

There is one case on record in which a diffractometer was credited with reversing a court decision. Before the diffractometer was installed in the New York laboratory, an importer brought into the country a shipment of material which he listed as duty-free zirconium oxide. A chemical analysis, while not very convincing, showed that the material was not zirconium oxide. But the method of testing was such that the importer successfully challenged the Customs finding and the Customs court ruled that the material should be admitted as zirconium oxide, free of duty.

However, the laboratory was not finished with this case. Soon after this decision a diffractometer was installed in the laboratory. Another analysis of the material was made. And the diffractometer revealed beyond the shadow of doubt that the material was not what the importer claimed. The crystals in the material showed that it was stabilized zirconium oxide, dutiable at 15 per cent of its value, rather than ordinary zirconium oxide, free of any duty. The result was that the diffractometer’s findings were accepted by the court and the original ruling in favor of the importer was reversed.

Sometimes the secretiveness of shippers poses an unusual problem. Such was the case when a Swedish manufacturer of homogenized ham-and-cheese spread decided to send his product into the American market. He would not disclose to Customs the recipe for this spread—obviously feeling that his trade secret might fall into the hands of a competitor.

Customs chemists were given the job of determining which of the materials in the spread was the major dutiable material. It was a tricky problem because both ham and cheese are of animal origin and consist of protein and fats. After two weeks the laboratory was able to report that the Swedish manufacturer’s product was primarily ham. Then there was no problem in fixing the tariff rate.

New York is the largest of the laboratories and tests about one-fourth of more than 120,000 samples which are examined each year. Boston is the next largest, and then comes New Orleans. Over the years each laboratory has become a specialist in certain examinations. Most of the wool entering the United States is examined in Boston. Chicago leads in the examinations of samples of ore, grain, and metals. New York does the great majority of testing of dyestuffs; and New Orleans has become a major center in the examination of narcotics, because of its geographic location near the Mexican border.

The laboratories are constantly seeking new and better ways of testing materials. A notable achievement in this field was made by Melvin Lerner, now the chief chemist in the Baltimore laboratory, when he developed an entirely new method for determining, easily and accurately, the opium content of any materials, in addition to identifying prohibited synthetic narcotics.

The process involves dissolving a small amount of the suspected powder in a mixture of trichloroethane, chloroform, nitric acid and phosphoric acid. If no heroin is present, the liquid will be colorless or have an apple-green hue. But if heroin is present, the liquid will range in color from light yellow to yellowish brown—the darker color indicating the powder is almost 100 per cent pure heroin. Distinctive coloring is produced also by the synthetics.