The amount involved exceeded $1 billion! Amazon sellers were jailed for selling counterfeit goods

According to foreign media reports, the US Department of Justice recently announced the arrest of a man suspected of selling counterfeit products of Chinese Internet brand Cisco .

According to reports , in order to sell these counterfeit products under the name of legitimate resale, the man established a company called "Pro Network" with its head office in Miami and the remaining 18 branches located throughout New Jersey and Florida.

In addition to reselling on his own website, the man also resold the products in 25 stores set up on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay , with the amount involved exceeding US$1 billion .

The man imported thousands of counterfeit Cisco devices from China ( including mainland China and Hong Kong ) at prices 95 % to 98% lower than genuine Cisco products, and sold them illegally through his company website and online platforms such as Amazon and eBay .

It is reported that these counterfeit products are also imported from China . The counterfeiters purchase Cisco's older, low-end models or products that are discarded due to defects during the production process at low prices , and then process and package them, use pirated Cisco software and change internal components to circumvent the license checks of genuine manufacturers, and then package and seal them with forged Cisco labels and stickers, manuals and other materials.

After being imported into the United States, these counterfeit products were sold to customers such as hospitals, schools, government agencies, and the military .

It is understood that this is not the first time that the man has been found to have violated the law. Between 2014 and 2022, US border officials intercepted approximately 180 batches of counterfeit Cisco equipment shipped to the United States by the man. He used an alias to provide forged documents to inspectors, thereby evading legal sanctions .

Because the products he sold frequently had quality problems and were repeatedly identified by consumers as counterfeit, Amazon and eBay repeatedly suspended or terminated his store on their websites. However, since then ( between 2014 and 2020), the man has repeatedly returned to the e-commerce platforms by creating new stores under different names .   

In addition, as the scale of his counterfeit sales grew, Cisco also noticed this phenomenon. From 2014 to 2019, Cisco sent 7 cease-and-desist letters to the man , asking him to immediately stop selling counterfeit goods, but all ended in failure .

In July 2021, 1,156 counterfeit Cisco devices with a retail value of more than $7 million were seized from the man's warehouse during a raid .

It was not until the end of June this year that the man was formally arrested by the US Department of Justice on charges including : one count of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and commit mail and wire fraud , three counts of mail fraud , four counts of wire fraud , and three counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods .

At present, the man’s stores on his own website, Amazon, eBay and other platforms have been closed, but it is not clear whether the victims will be compensated.

Since the report , this news has sparked discussions among many American consumers, including criticism of the rampant counterfeiting on platforms such as Amazon and distrust of Chinese brands.

For European and American countries that attach great importance to intellectual property rights, counterfeiting and selling counterfeit goods are behaviors that will be combated with all efforts. No matter which country you are in, sellers should not challenge the bottom line of the law.

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