Coraly Schreiber

From the inspection table to the decision desk, Coraly Schreiber has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of customs enforcement, international trade, and federal regulatory law.

Coraly is the Founder and Managing Member of Caribbean Customs and Trade Counsel LLC (CCTC), a San Juan-based law firm focused on U.S. customs law, trade compliance, and enforcement matters. A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer, attorney, and Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures decision maker, Coraly brings clients a perspective developed through more than two decades of federal government service and two years of private practice.

Few customs attorneys have experienced the CBP enforcement process from as many vantage points. Coraly served as a Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures (FP&F) Officer for CBP's Office of Field Operations in San Juan, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In that capacity, she worked directly with customs enforcement matters and the administrative processes through which CBP determines whether violations occurred and whether penalties, seizures, liquidated damages, and other enforcement consequences should be imposed or mitigated.

She subsequently joined CBP Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she served as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Trade, Regulations and Rulings. For approximately a decade, Coraly advised on customs enforcement actions and Freedom of Information Act matters, developing an extensive understanding of how CBP interprets and applies the laws and regulations it administers.

Coraly later became FP&F Branch Chief at CBP Headquarters, where she provided national-level oversight involving CBP's 42 Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures offices. The position placed her at the intersection of field enforcement, agency policy, legal interpretation, and administrative decision-making and gave her an unusually broad view of how customs enforcement operates across ports and regions throughout the United States.

She also served as FP&F Administrator for U.S. Border Patrol's Southeast Region, supporting enforcement operations covering Buffalo, New Orleans, Miami, and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. That experience now informs CCTC's approach to representing clients.

Coraly understands customs matters not merely from the perspective of the law governing an enforcement action, but from the perspective of the officials who investigate the facts, evaluate the evidence, determine the violation, assess the government's position, and decide whether relief is warranted.

Her practice focuses on complex CBP enforcement and customs matters, including seizures and forfeitures, civil penalties, liquidated damages claims, prior disclosures, customs protests and Applications for Further Review, classification, valuation, country of origin and substantial transformation, broker matters, administrative petitions, CBP rulings, FOIA matters, import compliance, and strategic duty planning. She also counsels companies and their advisors on identifying and addressing customs risk before it develops into an enforcement matter.

Private Practice Successful Results

In private practice, Coraly has achieved significant results for clients confronting CBP actions and other customs issues. Her experience includes:

• Obtaining full relief in seizure matters resulting in the result of client’s property and currency.

• Obtaining full relief of penalties resulting in cancellation of penalty actions.

• Obtaining full relief in liquidated damages cases resulting in bond preservation and significant savings due to mitigated amounts.

• Securing approval of a previously denied customs broker license.

• Obtaining favorable results through Protests, Post-Summary Corrections and Applications for Further Review. Securing the release of requested government records through FOIA.

• Securing preferential duty rulings in support of client’s duty saving strategies.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Her approach is particularly well suited to matters in which understanding how CBP is likely to analyze a problem is as important as understanding the governing statute or regulation.

Coraly is also an experienced instructor and speaker on customs enforcement and international trade. During her government career, she taught and presented to CBP officers, attorneys, import specialists, entry specialists, paralegal specialists, supervisors, and other federal personnel at port-level and Headquarters programs and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC). She later served as a mentor in CBP's Advanced Supervisory Leadership Training program for managers and leaders across CBP's operational components.

In private practice, she has spoken before attorneys, customs professionals, businesses, and international audiences on topics including the FP&F process, intellectual-property enforcement, U.S. food-import requirements, export compliance, customs risk mitigation, and the challenges businesses face when importing merchandise into the United States.

A native of Puerto Rico practicing from San Juan, Coraly is fluent in English and Spanish. Her practice is not simply bilingual but bicultural, allowing her to advise businesses, attorneys, customs brokers, carriers, and other trade professionals operating between the continental United States, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

She founded Caribbean Customs and Trade Counsel to bring that combination of government insight, enforcement experience, legal analysis, and practical problem-solving directly to clients navigating the U.S. customs system.

At CCTC, Coraly's philosophy is straightforward: the strongest customs strategy begins with understanding not only what the law says, but how the agency charged with enforcing it thinks, evaluates risk, and makes decisions.