US charges 29 people in counterfeit imports ring

New York, June 27: US authorities said today they had charged 29 people in a scheme to smuggle counterfeit goods including designer handbags and jeans into the United States, mostly from China, worth 700 million dollars.

Most of the defendants were arrested early today in New York and New Jersey for attempting to smuggle the fake goods, including knock-off Coach, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Burberry handbags, as well as Rolex watches and Nike sneakers, the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn said.

The defendants were charged with smuggling a total of 950 shipments through ports at Newark in New Jersey, Houston in Texas and Long Beach in California, JFK Airport and the New York Container Terminal in Staten Island.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and customs officers used cooperating witnesses, undercover agents and video surveillance throughout the year and a half investigation, the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Schemes uncovered in the smuggling operations included providing fraudulent shipping documents to customs brokers and paying off port officers who were undercover ICE agents, authorities said.

Other goods seized included North Face jackets, Fendi handbags and True Religion jeans, according to the complaints.

''Counterfeiting has risen to the level of an economic pandemic costing the legitimate US economy more than 200 billion dollars annually,'' Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE Julie Myers said in a statement.

Four of the defendants were also charged with money laundering, including three for wiring more than 6 million dollars from the United States to Hong Kong to fund the schemes.

If convicted, those charged face sentences of between five and 20 years in prison.

Reuters>