I have never seen this and nobody I know in the aviation business has seen it.

Of course, when arriving from a foreign location, CBP and Immigration have to check your paperwork, plane and documents (passport, general/crew declaration, etc.). They ask the usual questions about bringing goods and currency in.

Yesterday, prior to departing a small airport (in a very affluent town) for the Bahamas, CBP rolls up. They start asking us questions about currency we’re carrying and the search our bags and the plane. It was very similar to a thorough CBP search when arriving. This never happens when you depart.

We even had to fill out customs “entry” forms declaring our goods—the blue cards.

We thought someone tipped them about our passengers. The pax ended up being delayed 45 minutes and CBP didn’t wait. These guys are attached to a large seaport so that’s their primary job. Maybe it was just training but it was very strange.

That’s pretty funny with the US government and Fed cabal being the biggest counterfeiters in the world.

Currency smuggling is a real thing.  Cartels and other criminal organizations based in other countries need to get the proceeds from drugs sales and other crimes in the U.S. back to where they are based to continue the cycle.  Some criminal organizations prefer this method over money laundering.  It is what it is.

sounds like they are searching for a pilot that is moving product from outside the US not a PAX.

I know a guy that got busted for cocaine like that but he was a boat captain.

CBP???????

Surprised you've never seen it before. I've seen it many times at IAD while waiting for flights. They tend to look most closely at Indian and Chinese travelers.

Not uncommon on outbound flights to the Caribbean, Central & South America. Had a guy intercepted & detained a few spots ahead of me on the boarding bridge by plainclothes officers on a flight to Jamaica a couple years ago & have seen currency sniffing dogs on outbound flights to South America.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  They have jurisdiction not only on inbound international flights, but also on outbound international flights.  Nothing new about this at all.

It doesn’t seem unusual to you to fill out a customs declaration form when leaving?  The form that starts “Each arriving traveler…”?

Lots of CBP presence at IAD last night.

How “not unusual” is it?  Becasue I suspect OP travels internationally a fair amount and never saw it before.

I’ve only ever done one inbound.

Imagine if government agencies could focus on the actual issues at hand, instead of bullshit that means absolutely nothing to 99% of the citizens in this country.

The Democrats will seal our borders when the outflow of wealth fleeing their communism takes off.

outbound currency is a thing, certain destinations are far more common. Mexico is quite common, as is other drug countries. They ship drugs in, the shippers want their cash to buy more drugs and live it up so they need it back.

@Andrew CBP is "Customs and Border Protection" they wear blue, work at airports, sea ports, land crossings, fed-ex, UPS  hubs, mail facilities, and a couple (rare) train crossings.  they are "the only LEO agency where bad guys come to us" . Usually out of shape(tehy are heavily desk bound), and they used to be INSANELY good at immigration law(which is super complicated, like single largest section of law in the US, makes the tax code look simple), but back in 2003 when INS(immigration naturalization services), and Customs(was called just customs back then, they didnt know jack about immigration, visas, etc but everything about charging import duties on cargo, finding drugs, etc), merged they made the new employees learn the basic basics of immigration and basics of cargo because a single brain holding all info that would require superior IQ(like legitimately unable to get enough bodies to fill vacancies so they dumbed it down when they combined the forces) so the new officers are very much jack of all trades master of none.

BP(border patrol) wears green and catches people crossing at NON LEGAL crossings. ("meat missile running through the brush after illegals" is the description a guy i know used to describe his first 5 years there, he then moved to CBP; but guy could actually track people in ground, and was crazy good at following trails through brush)

They both fall under DHS though.

On personal travel, I’ve been subject to outbound stops many times and I have been required to fill out and sign the customs declaration at least three times.

However, one thing to note is that green routinely assists blue.

Sort of makes one wonder how much cash gets through the US/Mexico border everyday while the 'CBP' searches you guys.

I have been the subject of federal search warrant by CBP as well as thorough searches by CBP in secondary on several occasion.  Even when I had stacks of several K in 100s they have never counted it and just believed me (oddly this is the one thing CBP has always been honest with me on and they just stuff the cash in the clear baggy and nothing has ever been missing).  They seem to not care much about cash unless you have a gigantic bundle or it's a targeted investigation for cash.  On the other hand they have a real hard-on for thinking everything is drugs even when it clearly is not.

Yeah, plenty of airline crew members have gotten busted for muling drugs. Never heard of bizjet crews doing it. Our schedules just aren’t that consistent or predictable.

But I believe your premise is correct.

This. And (with the airlines, not corporate) I’ve had CBP show up on the jetway on both inbound and outbound flights to nab someone.

But this was a small, no commercial airline service airport in a very wealthy town. You don’t get (small time) money launderers in places like this. If these people need to launder money, they’ll buy a foreign corporation and bribe local officials.

You should have just told them you are a migrant in Spanish. They'd have just waved you through and given you a debit card.

I need to start brushing up on my spanish…or Swahili…or Mandarin.

Funny you say that
Dude that caught our eye initially was like 6’3” and build like The Rock

The runs I’ve ran into are too fat to even draw their pistols

My mom got busted by a dog for trying to bring a banana back to the US after visiting Europe.