18 U.S.C. § 553
Section 553 · Importation or exportation of stolen motor vehicles, off-highway mobile equipment, vessels, or aircraft
Amended 4 times on record
Applied in 28 court decisions — leading case Bostic v. Rives (1939)
Most recently applied in Nikolay Tantchev v. Merrick B. Garland (August 2022)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) Whoever knowingly imports, exports, or attempts to import or export—
(1) any motor vehicle, off-highway mobile equipment, vessel, aircraft, or part of any motor vehicle, off-highway mobile equipment, vessel, or aircraft, knowing the same to have been stolen; or
(2) any motor vehicle or off-highway mobile equipment or part of any motor vehicle or off-highway mobile equipment, knowing that the identification number of such motor vehicle, equipment, or part has been removed, obliterated, tampered with, or altered;
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(b) Subsection (a)(2) shall not apply if the removal, obliteration, tampering, or alteration—
(1) is caused by collision or fire; or
(2)(A) in the case of a motor vehicle, is not a violation of section 511 of this title (relating to altering or removing motor vehicle identification numbers); or
(B) in the case of off-highway mobile equipment, would not be a violation of section 511 of this title if such equipment were a motor vehicle.
(c) As used in this section, the term—
(1) “motor vehicle” has the meaning given that term in section 32101 of title 49;
(2) “off-highway mobile equipment” means any self-propelled agricultural equipment, self-propelled construction equipment, and self-propelled special use equipment, used or designed for running on land but not on rail or highway;
(3) “vessel” has the meaning given that term in section 401 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1401);
(4) “aircraft” has the meaning given that term in section 40102(a) of title 49; and
(5) “identification number”—
(A) in the case of a motor vehicle, has the meaning given that term in section 511 of this title; and
(B) in the case of any other vehicle or equipment covered by this section, means a number or symbol assigned to the vehicle or equipment, or part thereof, by the manufacturer primarily for the purpose of identifying such vehicle, equipment, or part.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1994—Subsec. (c)(1). Pub. L. 103–272, §5(e)(5)(A), substituted “section 32101 of title 49” for “section 2 of the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act”.
Subsec. (c)(4). Pub. L. 103–272, §5(e)(5)(B), substituted “section 40102(a) of title 49” for “section 101 of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (49 U.S.C. App. 1301)”.
1992—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 102–519 substituted “fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years” for “fined not more than $15,000 or imprisoned not more than five years” in concluding provisions.
1988—Subsec. (b)(2). Pub. L. 100–690 amended par. (2) generally. Prior to amendment, par. (2) read as follows: “is not a violation of section 511 of this title.”