Jewelry Maker, Employees Charged With Evading Over $86M in Tariffs
An Indonesian jewelry company and its co-owner, along with two other employees, were charged last week with taking part in a scheme to evade over $86 million in customs duties on jewelry imports, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey announced. Two of the individuals, Indonesian national Icha Anastasia and Italian national Claudio Fogale, were arrested last week and each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud (United States v. PT Untung Bersama Sejahtera a/k/a UBS Gold, D.N.J. # 2:25-12158).
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Michael Yahya, the co-owner of UBS Gold, the Indonesian company charged in the complaint, "remains in Indonesia and has not yet been arrested," the U.S. Attorney's Office said. The complaint only charged UBS Gold, Yahya, Anastasia and Fogale with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. UBS Gold faces a maximum fine of $500,000 or twice the gain from the offense, "whichever is greater," and the individuals face a $250,000 maximum fine.
In a separate release issued on the arrests, CBP said its officers and import specialists identified an alleged scheme to "route gold jewelry shipments through a foreign intermediary and return them to the United States under the guise of 'U.S. goods returned,'" which would significantly reduce the duties owed on the imports.
The U.S. began imposing duties on jewelry from Indonesia on Jan. 1, 2021, after the expiration of the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program. The U.S. Attorney's Office said UBS Gold and its co-conspirators initially sought to evade these duties by making the jewelry in Indonesia, then shipping it to Jordan, "which had a Free Trade Agreement with the United States," before entering it in the U.S. The complaint listed two unnamed companies -- one based in Jordan that CBP was told made the jewelry and another based in the U.S. that imported the goods.
The complaint alleged that when customers bought goods from UBS Gold, "they rarely if ever communicated with anyone from" the unnamed Jordanian company. UBS Gold "exerted control over the customer relationship" and would send a "proforma invoice" to the Jordanian company after an order was placed with UBS Gold, which said the goods were "MADE IN INDONESIA," the complaint alleged.
The Jordanian company would then send UBS Gold a final invoice on the Jordanian company's letterhead that listed a "slightly higher price and the false claim that the" goods were made in Jordan, the complaint said.
After President Donald Trump imposed additional tariffs on Jordan under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the complaint alleged, UBS Gold and the two unnamed companies "then began developing a new way to import jewelry to avoid the tariff." This scheme involved sending scrap gold from the unnamed U.S. company to the Jordanian company, swapping the scrap gold for UBS Gold jewelry made in Indonesia, shipping the UBS Gold jewelry back to the U.S., then "falsely claiming to CBP that the jewelry was manufactured in the United States."
In August 2025, the unnamed U.S. company allegedly asked a customs broker whether this scheme was permissible, and the customs broker asked a CBP official about the scheme. The CBP official said it wouldn't be "verifiable that U.S.-originated gold was used in the jewelry" and that turning the gold from the U.S. into jewelry in a foreign country "would substantially transform it and render the jewelry subject to tariffs." The CBP official's response was shared with UBS Gold, the complaint alleged. UBS Gold allegedly still continued with the scheme.