Lumber Liquidators to Pay $13.2 Million in Fines for Lacey Violations

Washington, DC, February 2, 2016—Lumber Liquidators has been sentenced to $13.2 million in fines and forfeitures for importing illegal wood and submitting false declarations under the Lacey Act, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). In addition, the company has been placed on a five-year probation, during which it must implement a strict environmental compliance plan.

In October 2015, after a two-year investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the flooring retailer pleaded guilty to smuggling illegal wood, including one criminal felony of entry of goods by means of false statements and four misdemeanor counts of violating the Lacey Act.

Lumber Liquidators had imported flooring manufactured in China, made from wood that was illegally harvested in the forests of the Russian Far East, the habitat of the world’s last remaining wild Siberian tigers.

EIA first documented Lumber Liquidators’ illegal activities in its 2013 report, Liquidating the Forests. Posing as timber buyers, EIA investigators went undercover to expose the illegal timber harvesting and trade in the Russian Far East and traced the wood through China to a company that admitted to illegal logging and paying bribes. The EIA investigation revealed that Lumber Liquidators was the single biggest trading partner of this Chinese company. The subsequent investigation by the DOJ found that Lumber Liquidators committed systemic fraud and sourced illegal timber not only from the Russian Far East but also from Burma.