Apr
6
One That Should Have Gotten Away
Posted by Clif Burns at 11:12 am on April 6, 2007
Category: BIS • Cuba Sanctions
Captain Ted Baier and his charter fishing boat “Lethal Weapon” went fishing in March 2003 and encountered Jaws — or, at least, the jaws of the Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”). According to charging letters and settlement agreements just posted on the BIS website, this fateful trip started from the tropic port of Key West. Captain Baier, the skipper brave and sure, apparently wandered into Cuban territorial waters not so far south of Key West. And the rest is history — a $5,000 fine for the Skipper and a $12,000 fine for his company Lethal Weapon Charters.
The charging letters accuse the boat of being exported without an OFAC license from Cuba when it traveled twice “from the United States to Cuba or enter[ed] Cuban territorial waters.” It’s doubtful that the Lethal Weapon landed in Cuba and much more likely that, in pursuit of marlin or other quarry, the eager crew entered Cuban territorial waters 12 miles from the coast of Cuba (and 78 miles from Key West). I’ve heard that this is not uncommon for charters out of Key West. A little Google work and you can quickly find some Key West charter boats that trumpet on their websites their successes in Cuba’s annual International Hemingway Fishing Tournament.
Now, we’re not going to claim that Captain Baier and his boat didn’t break the law here. But we can’t resist saying “Come on, doesn’t BIS have better things to do??” The purpose of the Cuba embargo is to deprive Castro of needed financial resources. Castro didn’t earn one red dime from the Lethal Weapon’s foray into his waters. If anything, U.S. fishing in Cuban waters takes money away from Castro.
So, BIS should stop wasting time worrying about where charter boats are in the Florida Straits and do what they are supposed to do which, we thought, was to protect national security.
Permalink
Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)
7 Comments:
Yes, there are bigger issues to spend time on other than busting a couple of fishing out-fits. !!!
I say: “Get to work with dealing with the illeagal aliens coming across our borders, and student terrorist that only want to play for flight classes in order to steer planes into our buildings!”
L.A.Borguss
Well, before your too harsh on the BIS, the Lethal Weapon and her captain may be getting of easy. Obviously, they willfully violated the requirement to get permission from the USCG before going into Cuban waters. Obvious because permission is contingent upon the proper BIS and OFAC licenses are in hand. The rules are even more onerous now. http://www.uscg.mil/d7/d7o/mic/cubapermit.htm I wonder if the wayward sailors got a USCG fine for their flagrant disregard for US law.
It isn’t just the embargo against Cuba that is driving this. Cuba has been known to take hostile action against boats in their waters. Last thing we need is some idiot charter boat shot up and creating an incident. As for illegal aliens, the permit rule appears to also be aimed at preventing another boat lift of Cuban criminals into Florida.
JKB – I admitted that Lethal Weapon broke the law and that BIS had the right to impose a fine. I just questioned the BIS enforcement priorities involved.
And if you have some evidence of Cuba shooting up fishing boats, I think we’d all be interested in seeing it.
I took the risk of getting shot up from the Federal Register write up. It was one of the reasons for the permit requirement. But still some of these idiots are going to be in Cuban waters when Castro dies and you don’t want to be an American in Cuba when that happens. The new guy will either feel threatened or want to show his determination. Plus for a while the military will be shall we say left to its own devices.
JKB — Agreed. I wouldn’t want to be in Cuban waters at that time either. But I’m unlikely to be in Cuban waters at any time in the forseeable future since, even though I don’t agree with the embargo, I certainly abide by it.
JKB-
They were fishing for FISH,….not Cuban Immigrants,..so get over that.
Besides, the embargo against Cuba is NOT working!
Cuban has investors from all over the world just pouring money into ‘Castros Machine’.
Castro doesn’t care if the U.S. does not send business his way, he has many countries that support his ‘habit’ of being a Carribean Tyrant, so why should he really care about the U.S. embargo?
Castro uses that “EMBARGO” as an excuse to have have to share his millions with the people of his country, they live dirt poor and have no way of knowing that they are being left out of the money Cuba makes off of the other countries of this world.
Man,..Do your research.
– L.A.Borguss
[…] So BIS is clearly looking for something exported by Moore to Cuba. One possibility is the horse boat he road in on. We’ve seen that before when BIS nailed a sport fishing boat that chased a fish into Cuban waters. Outside of that it’s hard to see what Moore would have exported. Maybe he spit out some gum he brought with him from the United States. This would be problematic because section 746.2 doesn’t contain the LVS exception for limited value shipments that might otherwise cover the export of a stick of chewed-up chewing gum to Cuba. […]
