The Australian Newspaper reported this morning that owners of musical instruments made with illegally imported wood will not face prosecution according to two US federal agencies. This decision was made clear in a letter that addresses a number of concerns that were raised up after the raids on Gibson factory in Tennessee earlier this year.
It appears that the federal focus is enforcement efforts on those who are removing protected species from the wild and making a profit by trafficking in them. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich and Christopher J. Mansour, director of legislative affairs at Interior wrote: “those who unknowingly posses an instrument made from illegally imported materials don’t have a criminal problem”.
Blackburn and other congressional Republicans have been pressing the federal agencies to meet with them about August 24 raids on Gibson Guitar Corp. factories in Memphis and Nashville where agents seized pallets of wood, guitars and computer hard drives. Gibson chief executive Henry Juszkiewicz has publicly blasted the raids as an example of the federal government risking US jobs with overzealous regulation – The Australian.
You can read the story on The Australian Website.
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