On June 7 agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security searched the offices of Global Plywood & Lumber Inc. to investigate whether the California-based company imported illegally harvested wood from the Peruvian Amazon without the proper permits, according to Reuters.
On June 7 agents from the United States Department of Homeland Security searched the offices of Global Plywood & Lumber Inc. to investigate whether the California-based company imported illegally harvested wood from the Peruvian Amazon without the proper permits, according to Reuters.
The company has not been charged, and a spokesman for Homeland Security in Houston told Reuters the investigation is ongoing.
Global Plywood has been importing wood products from Peru since 2007. In 2010, it began working with Peruvian exporting firm Inversiones La Oroza. However, according to an affidavit filed with the search warrant seen by Reuters, La Oroza was stripped of its logging concession by the Peruvian government in 2010 for cutting cedar illegally.
Yet Global Plywood imported more than 9,700 cubic meters of wood from La Oroza, or $3.6 million worth of wood, between 2012 and 2015, the affidavit said.
The investigation into Global Plywood started in September 2015. Peruvian authorities told the U.S. that a shipment containing 3.8 million pounds of wood, 90 percent of which they knew was illegally harvested, was en route to the Port of Houston. Most of the wood was from La Oroza and destined for Global Plywood.
The shipment was not allowed into the U.S. and today is still sitting at the Port of Houston, according to Reuters.
