Posted on 09/05/2006 4:31:57 PM PDT by Cagey
PHOENIX, Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. police have seized thousands of pairs of fake Nike sneakers and charged six men in connection with one of the largest busts of counterfeit goods in recent U.S. history, authorities said on Tuesday.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents told a news conference in Tucson, Arizona, the ring imported 135,000 pairs of knock-off Nike Air Jordan shoes from China with a retail value of $16 million, between May and July of this year.
The conspirators packed the shoes into 15 shipping containers and attempted to bring them into the United States while creating a false paper trail indicating they had in fact been reexported to Mexico, investigators said.
"This case represents one of the most significant investigations into counterfeit goods in recent U.S. history," ICE special agent Roberto Medina said. It "is a victory for both consumers and legitimate businesses." he added.
The defendants, two U.S. citizens and four of unspecified nationality, were arraigned in Arizona last month on charges including bribery of a public official and conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods.
Three defendants are being held in federal jail, while two have been released on bail and a sixth remains on the run.
Nike Inc. (NKE.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's top athletic shoemaker, is among hundreds of manufacturers of high-end consumer goods whose brands are knocked off by counterfeiters in an illicit global trade valued at $650 billion a year.
The investigation, which also involved U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, tracked shipping containers to ports in Long Beach, California, and to land crossings at Nogales, Arizona, and Laredo, Texas.
As part of an ongoing investigation, CBP officers said they are inspecting a further 62 oceangoing containers at ports of entry in California and Texas.
china most favored trade nation status? nice
What am I missing here? U.S. citizens with "no nationality"?
WTF?
oops....never mind....I mis-read the sentence....time to get the med's..
Awwww... My how brave of them. They captured some tennis shoes but let in all the illegal invaders?
Ewwwwww, approximately 70 shipping containers of counterfeit junk that doesnt get paid for has to bite somebody,,,Someone in the Vivachinko connection is gonna have his head roll.
Pretty much every Tommy Bahama shirt on eBay is a fake, as far as I can tell.
Question - how do you tell counterfeit Nike shoes from the "real deal"? Many Nikes and Reeboks are manufactured in China anyway. Thus the fact that they are made in China isn't a giveaway.
Heck - it wouldn't surprise me if these were even made in the same factory as the "real" shoes....
I wonder if this was another Hezbollah operation. They're big on counterfeiting.
How can you tell?
the real ones are made in china - $125 each, and the quality stinks.
That's zakly what happens, I was told by my Hong kong friends. A factory gets an order, materials to fill it, fills the order, then continues manufacturing using leftover materials or equivalent stuff it ordered on its own. Voila, Nike shoes, no different from the real "scientifically designed" thing.
Isn't it amazing that people are willing to pay high prices just for a brand name which in itself means nothing?It would be different if the high priced goods were actually that much better. As for me ,no name athletc shoes at one-tenth the price suffice,AND they;re made in China,too!
if I'm going to pay $125 for a shirt, it had better be made in the US or in Italy.
I can't conceive of $126 shirt on my income;maybe the whole suit.
Then Academy Sports must sell counterfeit Nike products, as they carry several shoes that are marked as Nike, come in Nike boxes, and are 100% vinyl.
One big clue is that the patterns don't line up when the shirt is buttoned. There are also patterns that Tommy Bahama never made. And, the prices are just too low. They make claims like "overstock", "got from business liquidiation", etc., but if you look back in the seller's history, they seem to have an infinite supply, having sold identical items hundreds of times.
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