Lopez, Alexander

Alexander Lopez’s experience is primarily FDA imports and customs law.  He has completed advanced fraud training with the Department of Homeland Security (HSI).  Alex currently serves as the Director of Compliance Branch, with the Division of Southwest Imports.   

    
In 2012, Alex received the prestigious Import Compliance Officer Of The Year Award for outstanding service, contribution, and dedication to protecting public health by ensuring imported products meet regulatory standards and for collaborating with other agencies on enforcement actions.  Alex has also served as a subject matter expert in the field of import operations in several committees; he was one of the original twelve steering committee members of the FDA Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) Revitalization Committee.  In 2007, he was elected to be the Lead Chair of the ORA Revitalization Import Operations Work Group which developed several business cases that has since re-shaped how FDA handles import operations through a globalized approach.

Alex started with the FDA as a Consumer Safety Inspector (CSI) in 1999 at the FDA Laredo Resident Post.  In 2000, He became an Import Consumer Safety Officer (CSO) with the newly formed Southwest Import District (SWID) which encompasses the entire U.S/Mexican border.  As a CSO he developed and was involved in numerous criminal cases that have resulted in the issuance of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) civil monetary penalties as well as the seizure of goods.  In 2004, Alex became a Compliance officer and held this position until June of 2015.  From June of 2015 until October 2016, He worked under FDA’s Division Of Imports Operations (DIO) as the Southwest Regional Activities Manager (RAM).  On October 31st, 2016, Mr. Lopez became the Director of Compliance Branch (DCB) with the Division of Southwest Imports (DSWI) and has since been at this position.  Throughout his career he has been involved in numerous health outbreaks that involve imported produce and has been instrumental in working with CBP in finding new enforcement approaches to ensure violative products are not distributed into the commerce of the United States.