Can't you just smell the fear in the section I bolded?
Tara Labs Raided - Over 42,000 Cables Seized
Jerry Del Colliano
September 13, 2004
Police raided the offices and warehouse of Ashland, Oregon-based high-end audio cable company Tara Labs last week, according to news sources. The raid is reportedly due to the company falsely claiming to make their cables in the United States when they were outsourcing the manufacturing overseas.
Mathew Bond, the founder of Tara Labs, denies knowing of the infraction and claims, "These mistakes were rectified and won’t happen here again." That might not be good enough for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been tracking the alleged violations since 2000.
The raids come just days before the CEDIA trade show that highlights the best in audio/video targeting the custom installer market. Tara Labs was not in attendance at the show.
Other high-end cable manufacturers spoke out about the scandal, suggesting that there may be more cable companies that do worse than repackage cable from China. This scandal and any potential conviction could do great harm to the high-end cable business. AV industry icons like Noel Lee, founder of Monster Cable, and Karen Sumner, president of Transparent cable, along with others, have spent millions marketing and teaching the importance of cables for mid-to-high-level AV systems. Critics say cables make no difference in an AV system, but they are wrong. Hopefully, the Tara Labs scandal will not taint the consumers’ view on the need for high-performance cables in home theater systems.
High-end cable industry getting nervous - customs raid
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Rspaight
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High-end cable industry getting nervous - customs raid
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
This guy was recently spotted setting up an audiophile sweat shop in a 3rd world country. Big Bird did not return phone calls.
Chuck thinks that I look to good to be a computer geek. I think that I know too much about interface design, css, xhtml, php, asp, perl, and ia (too name a few things) to not be one.
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chrischross
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Here's the original news report, from
http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004 ... /02biz.htm
Police, Customs agents raid Ashland’s Tara Labs
By ANITA BURKE
Mail Tribune
ASHLAND — Federal agents and Ashland police conducted a raid at a local cable manufacturer’s office this week, seizing more than $600,000 worth of cables as well as documents and computers that authorities claim could be evidence that TARA Labs Inc. violated U.S. customs laws.
According to the warrant served Tuesday, investigators believe TARA Labs, a maker of high-performance audio and video cables for home-entertainment systems, had labeled cables made outside the country as American-made. Such labeling would violate a federal law barring the fraudulent introduction of goods into U.S. commerce.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, searched the business at 550 Clover Lane, Ashland, with the help of local police. The search took most of the day, Ashland police Deputy Chief Rich Walsh said.
Officers seized more than 42,212 cables, price lists, stickers, documents and computers. Laptops, desktop computers and computer-backup tapes were taken to look for evidence of customs law violations since Jan. 1, 2000, according to a warrant and seized-property list on file at U.S. District Court in Medford.
Matthew Bond, founder and vice president of TARA Labs, said the company hadn’t known of problems with its labeling process until the surprise search this week.
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"TARA Labs was advised by Customs officials that we have been incorrectly removing labels on our products in regard to country of origin," he read from a prepared statement in a phone interview.
He said company officials thought that if cables were finished with plugs and packaged in the U.S., they could be labeled as U.S.-made even though the original wiring was produced in Asia.
Labels also were removed inappropriately from some wholly foreign-made cables by accident, Bond claimed. They were sold without labels showing where they were made.
"No fraud was intended or, indeed, perpetrated," he said. "These mistakes were rectified and won’t happen here again."
All the products in question were destined for markets outside the United States, he said.
Bond, who holds dual American and Australian citizenship, founded TARA Labs in Sydney, Australia, in 1986. He moved the business to Ashland in 1989 to meet growing U.S. demand. The company’s Web site says TARA products are sold in 38 countries.
Virginia Kice, ICE’s West Coast spokeswoman, said the federal agency has an open and ongoing investigation involving TARA Labs. That investigation is coordinated out of Portland.
http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004 ... /02biz.htm
Police, Customs agents raid Ashland’s Tara Labs
By ANITA BURKE
Mail Tribune
ASHLAND — Federal agents and Ashland police conducted a raid at a local cable manufacturer’s office this week, seizing more than $600,000 worth of cables as well as documents and computers that authorities claim could be evidence that TARA Labs Inc. violated U.S. customs laws.
According to the warrant served Tuesday, investigators believe TARA Labs, a maker of high-performance audio and video cables for home-entertainment systems, had labeled cables made outside the country as American-made. Such labeling would violate a federal law barring the fraudulent introduction of goods into U.S. commerce.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, searched the business at 550 Clover Lane, Ashland, with the help of local police. The search took most of the day, Ashland police Deputy Chief Rich Walsh said.
Officers seized more than 42,212 cables, price lists, stickers, documents and computers. Laptops, desktop computers and computer-backup tapes were taken to look for evidence of customs law violations since Jan. 1, 2000, according to a warrant and seized-property list on file at U.S. District Court in Medford.
Matthew Bond, founder and vice president of TARA Labs, said the company hadn’t known of problems with its labeling process until the surprise search this week.
Advertisement
How Healthy is the Air in Your Home?
"TARA Labs was advised by Customs officials that we have been incorrectly removing labels on our products in regard to country of origin," he read from a prepared statement in a phone interview.
He said company officials thought that if cables were finished with plugs and packaged in the U.S., they could be labeled as U.S.-made even though the original wiring was produced in Asia.
Labels also were removed inappropriately from some wholly foreign-made cables by accident, Bond claimed. They were sold without labels showing where they were made.
"No fraud was intended or, indeed, perpetrated," he said. "These mistakes were rectified and won’t happen here again."
All the products in question were destined for markets outside the United States, he said.
Bond, who holds dual American and Australian citizenship, founded TARA Labs in Sydney, Australia, in 1986. He moved the business to Ashland in 1989 to meet growing U.S. demand. The company’s Web site says TARA products are sold in 38 countries.
Virginia Kice, ICE’s West Coast spokeswoman, said the federal agency has an open and ongoing investigation involving TARA Labs. That investigation is coordinated out of Portland.