It's absurdly easy to get around these laws. For example: I had a motherboard shipped from China a few months ago. The shipper lied on manifest and claimed he w

It's absurdly easy to get around these laws. For example: I had a motherboard shipped from China a few months ago. The shipper lied on manifest and claimed he was sending the motherboard back to me after repairing it. Neither the US government nor China got any duties or taxes on that shipment. Lying on manifests also lets people import quasi-legal things such as cell phone jammers. The manifest will usually say something like "laser pointer" or "wifi repeater".