US Customs seizes $55K of fake Air Jordans

By

Cassidy Mantor

Published
Jan 19, 2018

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Washington DC's Dulles International Airport seized 400 pairs of fake Air Jordan sneakers. If authentic, the sneakers would have had a street value of approximately $55,000.

According to Customs, the sneakers arrived in seven boxes via air from China. The boxes were listed as containing auto parts, which indicated to CBP that the sneakers that were actually inside were fakes. Nike was able to verify that the goods were counterfeit and CBP seized them. 

"In this case, these items obviously did not match the description being shipped," U.S. Customs and Border Protection Assistant Port Director Patrick E. Orender Jr. said.

Daniel Mattina, CBP acting port director for the area Port of Washington, D.C., said that CBP will "continue to work closely with our trade and consumer safety partners to seize counterfeit and interior merchandise, especially those products that pose potential harm to American consumers, negatively impact legitimate business brand reputations and potentially steal jobs from U.S. workers."

Although CBP seizes $4 million in counterfeit goods daily, arrests are rare in this type of case. The top categories in which CBP finds fake goods are clothing, electronics and footwear, with jewelry and pharmaceuticals rounding out the most frequently counterfeited products.

"The theft of intellectual property and the trade in substandard and often dangerous goods threatens America’s innovation economy and consumer health and safety, and it generates proceeds that fund criminal activities and organized crime,” said Casey Owen Durst, CBP’s Field Operations Director in Baltimore, the agency’s operational commander in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Last year, CBP seized 31,560 fake goods with an estimated value of $1.38 billion. Counterfeit crime circles are hard to pierce but the US government was able to convict 272 people out of 450 arrests made last year related to intellectual property infringement and counterfeiting.