Five people have been charged in New York for importing, manufacturing, and distributing hundreds of thousands of pairs of fake Nike sneakers that originated in China.
“The five defendants in this case allegedly counterfeited over $70 million in fake Nike shoes and sold them to buyers on the U.S. market,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in the statement.
While the press release didn’t specify the ethnicities or nationalities of those who were charged, their names suggest that they are likely Chinese.
The five defendants imported sneakers that resembled Nike Air Jordans from China. Once these sneakers arrived in New York, the alleged smugglers, along with other co-conspirators, would affix a fake Nike logo to the shoes.
From January 2016 to about July 2018, the five defendants imported more than 380,000 pairs of sneakers in at least 42 shipping containers from China. The sneakers were then stored in multiple storage units and warehouses in New York City and elsewhere.
On Aug. 7, following a court-authorized search at a warehouse, several storage units, and a residence, federal law enforcement agents found thousands of counterfeit sneakers, along with knockoff Nike logos and machinery to affix them. The five defendants were subsequently arrested.
Each of the defendants faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The investigation was carried out by the Homeland Security Investigations division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE HSI) and the New York Police Department, with assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“These five individuals are alleged to have been a part of a large-scale counterfeiting scheme,” said ICE HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Angel M. Melendez in the press release. “These counterfeiting networks can be both detrimental to our economy and threaten our national security.”
