18 U.S.C. § 554
Section 554 · Smuggling goods from the United States
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 66 court decisions — leading case United States v. Frazier (2010)
Most recently applied in United States v. Andre Michael Dubois (June 2025)
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) In General.—Whoever fraudulently or knowingly exports or sends from the United States, or attempts to export or send from the United States, any merchandise, article, or object contrary to any law or regulation of the United States, or receives, conceals, buys, sells, or in any manner facilitates the transportation, concealment, or sale of such merchandise, article or object, prior to exportation, knowing the same to be intended for exportation contrary to any law or regulation of the United States, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(b) Definition.—In this section, the term “United States” has the meaning given that term in section 545.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
Another section 554 was renumbered section 555 of this title.