About Information:
The United States Customs Service
The United States Customs Service was the oldest Federal Law Enforcement agency in the country (tied with U.S. Marshals). Established by the First United States Congress under the Tariff Act in 1789, the agency has provided revenue to the country by taxing importations and by making sure that our borders were secure. The Customs Service was entrusted with certain powerful border search authorities to search and seize items that have entered, or possibly come into contact with our borders. As customs officers, we can search and seize items at the border without obtaining a warrant and without having probable cause that a crime has occurred.
Early in our history, the agency set up Customs houses in major ports to tax importations in order to collect much-needed revenue for our fledgling democracy. The early Customs officers quickly learned that shady importers would simply bypass the Customs houses to avoid paying the duties owed. Customs officers were authorized to use whatever boats they had at their disposal to track down these smugglers and collect the duties. In 1790, congress authorized the new bureau to build ten cutters, fast, agile boats with light armaments, which formed the United States Revenue Cutter Service, under Customs. These ships were protecting the nation’s borders before the United States Navy was even formed (1798). The Customs Revenue Cutters were also used to chase pirates and smugglers who continued to bring slaves into the country illegally even after slavery was banned in 1808. Revenue Service cutters would eventually be absorbed into the United States Coast Guard when it was founded in 1915. For the first 150 years of this countries’ history, the revenue collected by the Customs Service was the principal source of national income.
During the “War of Drugs” in the 1980’s and 90’s, the Customs Service would go back to its roots with a fleet of “fast, agile” boats to try to stop the massive amounts of illegal drugs being smuggled across our borders.
DHS/ICE and HSI
The events on 9/11/2001 changed everything for the Customs Service. The oldest Federal Law Enforcement agency would become the youngest with the stroke of a pen, when the Customs Service was rolled into what would form the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. There would be growing pains as all of the disparate pieces of the Customs Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Border Patrol were thrown together. Eventually, the Special Agents of the Customs Service and of the INS formed Homeland Security Investigations (under DHS) but our boat program stayed with Customs and Border Protection.
The legacy of the Customs Service lives on with the Special Agents of HSI and the Inspectors, Marine Enforcement Officers, Pilots, Air Interdiction officers and other personnel of CBP.
Customs Special Agents compared to other Enforcement positions
The general public usually incorrectly calls anyone who works for the Customs Service as a “Customs Agent.” To call all “Customs Officers” as “Customs Agents” would be like saying that all Police Officers were Police Detectives. The majority of “Customs Officers” were actually uniformed Inspectors, at airports, seaports and land border ports of entry. A smaller number of “Customs Officers” were the plain-clothed “Special Agents” who were given more freedom and latitude in performing their jobs, which include follow-up investigations and undercover work, often far away from traditional Ports of Entry.
The term Special Agent actually dates back to 1870 when Congress passed a law permitting the Secretary of the Treasury to appoint “Special Agents” to conduct investigations to prevent and detect frauds against Customs revenue. These Special Agents became the Special Agency Service and reported directly to the Secretary of the Treasury. They were later transferred under the Customs Service. The Special Agents position is considered as a GS-1811 job series
During the 1980’s, the agency greatly enlarged the ranks of Special Agents to fight the “War on Drugs.” The Customs Service offers a vast array of investigative disciplines for Special Agents. They can conduct undercover operations and can volunteer to join highly-trained Special Response Teams to perform all sorts of high-risk tactical operations.
Uniformed Customs Inspectors form the bedrock of the country’s Border protection, working mostly at the actual border, seaports, or at international airports. Both Inspectors and Special Agents share the agency’s powerful Border Search authority. For most Customs Inspectors , the Border Search authority is fairly straightforward and powerful. Since Special Agents work at the borders too, but often follow suspects crossing the border as they move around the rest of the country we work in a more complex area referred to as the Functional Equivalent of the Border, or FEB. This allows us Special Agents to extend the powerful border search and seizure authority to other areas if we keep the suspect or conveyance in constant surveillance.
Retired Special Agent Kevin Power
Kevin Power was hired by the U.S. Customs Service in 1986 during the push for the “War on Drugs,” and spent over 30 years as a Special Agent, first with the U.S. Customs Service and later for Homeland Security Investigations. After his exciting trial by fire in Key Largo, he transferred to the Customs office in Tampa, Florida. There he started being assigned different and more complicated cases, including undercover operations and computer forensic investigations. He would also become a founding member of the office’s tactical team (SRT) and served as the agency’s first liaison to U.S. Central Command for over 3 years. At the end of 2016, he retired and continues to live in the Tampa Bay Area.
“Throughout my career, I always kept a journal to keep track of the hours worked on each case for monthly reporting, but also to document some of the crazy events and funny stories that took place. After retiring, I went through my old journals looking back on my colorful, exciting career. I began writing about some of these crazy stories as part hobby/part therapy. I soon realized that, by telling the stories only from my point of view, I was not showing the forces that were actually driving the bad guy’s actions. I started to add sections where I wrote from the bad guy’s perspective, given all the details that we would later learn. This began to add depth and color to the stories. I liked the way that this brings the reader deeper into the action, knowing all the secrets, while showing us as we blunder through not being privy to the whole picture.”
He has organized many of the most colorful and exciting stories from his career into a series of narrative non-fiction books, each one able to stand on its own. All of the stories are based on real-world criminal cases and real people. This is not just another boring, egotistical memoir going into unnecessary detail of his life. These are fast-paced, gritty stories that prove that fact is often far stranger than fiction in these cases.
