Photo: U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Two have been arrested after $1 billion was emptied from a US vault in a “massive amount of rubbish”. from designer goods'
A US prosecutor said two New York men have been charged with “the largest ever seizure of counterfeit goods in US history.”
Federal prosecutors arrested two men More than 200,000 counterfeit bags, clothing and other luxury items worth $1.03 billion were seized Wednesday, making it “the largest seizure of counterfeit goods in U.S. history.”
Indictments The cases of Adama Sow and Abdulaj Jalloh were unsealed this week, revealing that both men were charged with trafficking in counterfeit goods.
US lawyer Damian Williams said in a statement that “the defendants used a Manhattan warehouse as a distribution center for vast quantities of counterfeit designer goods. The seizures announced today consist of items with an estimated retail value of more than a billion dollars, representing the largest seizure of counterfeit goods in U.S. history.”
From Queens and Manhattan, New York. York, Sow, 38, and Jalloh, 48, respectively face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Sow and Jalloh's “large-scale commodities trading operations” were conducted out of a warehouse in Manhattan, while Jalloh also traded through another location, also in Manhattan. The vault seizure resulted in the seizure of 83,000 items valued at more than US$502 million, while at another Jalloh location “more than 50,000 counterfeit items” worth over US$237 million were seized.
Photos of the premises released along with Williams' statement showed scores of bags, clothing and more in boxes or even strewn across ceiling pipes.
Ivan Arvelo, Special Issue Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations praised the results in a statement, saying they “underscore HSI New York's unwavering commitment to combating intellectual property theft and serve as a testament to the dedication of our team and partner agencies who have tirelessly pursued justice, culminating in the largest arrest of its kind in history.”
Douglas Hand, fashion lawyer and partner at Hand Baldachin & Associates LLP said it was “gratifying to see the U.S. Attorney take such a bold step to protect the intellectual property rights of fashion brands.”
It is noteworthy that in the United States it is illegal to purchase counterfeit products. goods or bring them into the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says doing so “may result in civil or criminal penalties, and purchasing counterfeit goods often facilitates criminal activities such as forced labor or human trafficking.”
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Hand added that the counterfeit market poses a “major problem not only for luxury fashion brands and the erosion of their trademarks.” values, but also for consumers and society as a whole, since many counterfeit products are produced in oppressive working conditions and without any respect for environmental production methods (if sold by brands).
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