ICE seizes Adidas, Apple and Chanel counterfeits
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized more than 181,000 counterfeit merchandise products worth $43 million last month in Laredo, Texas.
ICE detained a total of 795 boxes of trademark-infringing merchandise. The boxes included fake goods which featured trademarks owned by Adidas, Apple, Chanel, Luis Vuitton, Samsung, Rolex, and Marvel Comics.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) unit finished counting the items last week, according to a statement released on Friday, June 6.
The seizures were made following a three-day surveillance period in June, where HSI special agents observed boxes containing suspected counterfeit merchandise being moved. The agents later discovered that the shipping addresses on the boxes were not real.
HIS said that the counterfeit merchandise is believed to have been shipped from China.
The estimated street value of the items totals more than $42.9 million, making this the department’s largest counterfeit seizure in Laredo, which was identified as the tenth-most populous city in the state of Texas in the 2010 census.
No criminal charges have yet been brought in the ongoing investigation.
A separate seizure by HSI agents in May uncovered $16.1 million worth of counterfeit merchandise due to travel from Laredo to Mexico. HSI said the same criminal organisation, based in Laredo, is responsible for the goods seized in May and in June.
“Taken together, the two seizures represent $59 million in seized counterfeit merchandise, more than 260,000 pieces of garments, consumer electronics, cosmetics and jewellery,” the statement said.
ICE said that smugglers can “exploit the ports of entry by clandestinely smuggling merchandise to Mexico”, where “the smugglers bribe Mexican cartels who often extort Mexican regulatory and law enforcement officials so that the merchandise passes without being inspected”.
It added that, over the last fiscal year, HSI and the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) made more than 28,000 seizures involving counterfeit goods with an estimated value of $1.4 billion.
Last week, the CBP seized 108 counterfeit Super Bowl rings which had been shipped from Hong Kong. Authorised replicas of the ring can be sold for $10,000 each, the CBP said.
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