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Feds Grab 163 Web Sites, Snatch $21.6 Million In NFL Counterfeit Gear
coondoggie writes: "As they have for the past few years the US Customs department teamed with the National Football League to cut into the lucrative counterfeit sports gear market. In what the feds called 'Operation Team Player,' special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and officers from Customs and Border Protection worked with the National Football League (NFL) and other sports leagues along with law enforcement agencies to identify illegal shipments imported into the U.S., as well as stores and vendors selling counterfeit trademarked items."
title says it all
Probably made in the exact same factory by the same people.
I love how they call it counterfeit, like it's somehow of lesser quality than the chinese shit they sell themselves.
The AFL-CIO, and any other union for that matter, is a non-profit organization with a lot of pull.
When was the last time we heard about a 21 million dollar drug bust?
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
Because counterfeit football merchandise is such a "clear and present danger" that it rates diverting resources from, you know, actual crime like bank robbery and human trafficking. Maybe the NFL should be made to hire its own private security for this kind of stuff so public law enforcement can get back to protecting the public!
thank you mister feds for protecting us from those evil terrorist counterfit NFL gear. you're not in any way useless humans with pointless jobs.
I feel safer already!
Page 2 is my favorite!
Counterfit merchandise??? How could Richard Sherman let this happen??? He's a better human being than all of us put together. Just ask him.
Which country are the non-conterfeit items made in?
The jerseys (the good sewn ones) are simply way too expensive. They're upwards of $250-300 and taht's more than I'm spending on a player who might be with the team for 3-4 years. In fact, all the gear and items are obscenely inflated in price. However, the counterfeit stuff is hit or miss. I've got a Woodley jersey that looks like cartoon lettering was used for the player's name. Some items I'm sure are straight off the assembly line. Maybe they ran it another day and sold the extras on teh black market.
The NFL can't be surprised this is happening. When Americans started to realized that goods were being produced at cutrate prices overseas and sold to us as a huge markup, lots of us gave the finger to tradition stores and elected to cut out the middle man as well. I'm probably being hypocritical based on my stand on illegal downloads, but I have no sympathy for Goodell's NFL.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
And I think for those that don't follow or care about the game and its hefty income...
They're a billion dollar corporation, and yet are "tax exempt" and apparently can buy off Feds help to take down counterfeit NFL merchandise, making sure they can add a couple million more to there bottom line.
They also hired there own "medical commission" to ignore the fact repeated head trauma causes brain disease, despite leading neurologists having slices of brain, and findings that suggest otherwise. Any contact sport really, PBS and Frontline ran a 2 part special over the NFL's denial..
Pretty much a monopoly.
Customer and Border Patrol should stick to enforcing customs laws AT THE BORDER. Once it's entered the country they should have no authority. We've also seen them trying to enforce copyright, as in the recent Google Glass case. They're already out of control at the borders with their warrantless searches, their authority should be rolled back, not expanded.
Your tax dollars subsidize the stadiums, the wealthy owners, the games, and their idiotic and useless "trademarks" too.
Didn't we elect someone to stop crony capitalism? Oh, right: he's now the crony capitalist in chief.
They also hired there own "medical commission" to ignore the fact repeated head trauma causes brain disease, despite leading neurologists having slices of brain, and findings that suggest otherwise. Any contact sport really, PBS and Frontline ran a 2 part special over the NFL's denial..
Pretty much a monopoly.
I really don't know why the NFL is going through all that trouble. Those elite professionals who even make it to the NFL know damn well the dangers of playing the game. It's not like ANY kid eligible for the NFL draft doesn't know this, or it's some big secret that you can get hurt or killed on the field. I know damn well the dangers of stepping into a 3,000-pound steel box and sending it hurtling down a freeway at 75MPH, inches from thousands of other steel boxes. I still get up and do it, every single day. Not just on Sundays for 3 months out of the year. Every single day.
People put themselves in positions of danger for fucking minimum wage because they have to. These guys make millions of dollars every year for playing a game. A game they love. A game they've dedicated their lives to. I fail to understand the conspiracy here that does NOT carry over to sports equally as dangerous. It's like NASCAR hiring their own doctors to help disprove that concrete walls are deadly at 200MPH. Why the hell bother. We ALL know it's a dangerous sport. If the people engaged in the sport accept this, then who gives a shit.
Because counterfeit football merchandise is such a "clear and present danger" that it rates diverting resources from, you know, actual crime like bank robbery and human trafficking.
"Actual crime" is what the law defines as crime.
Crimes with an interstate or foreign dimension or a federal constitutional dimension become a federal responsibility.
Clear and present danger was a doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech, press or assembly.
Clear and present danger
Law enforcement multi-tasks.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the largest investigative agency in the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration and customs laws. ICE has more than 20,000 employees working in 400 offices in the U.S. and around the world.
Careers
No law endorsement agency is an island.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
With more than 42,000 frontline CBP officers and Border Patrol agents protecting nearly 7,000 miles of land border and 327 ports of entry --- including official crossings by land, air, and sea --- CBP is uniquely situated to deter and disrupt human trafficking.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
USCIS helps protect victims of human trafficking and other crimes by providing immigration relief. Two types of immigration relief for victims of human trafficking and other crimes are available through USCIS: T Nonimmigrant Status (T Visa) and U Nonimmigrant Status (U Visa).
Human Trafficking: Our Partners
For a look at the reality of bank robbery in the U.S:
Wanted Bank Robbers
Google Map and 287 photographs of robberies in progress,
Often the manufacturers of the legitimate sportswear get a contract to make 10,000 shirts. So to cover the expected rejects, they make 12,000 shirts with the knowledge they'll have 10,000 good shirts to supply to the customer. Now what to do with the 2000 shirts they made extra and/or were rejected due to manufacturing issues (label upsidedown, etc) - they sell them on. They don't get the little hologram label saying its legit, but its made in the same factory by the same people, its just outside of the contracted numbers.
If not, the why the hell are my tax dollars going to assist a private, for profit, enterprise in their desire to increase their profits?
The modern state exists primarily to protect corporate profits. Anything else it does is just window dressing...
I'll admit to being curious about how you manage to make a living.
The Feds involved cooperated so much for the PUBLICITY!
Had it been some other copyright infringement, it may not have even happened.
THIS, however, so close to the bowl, generates FREE PUBLICITY in the media.
Kind of like when they send in a SWAT team to a K.C. burb to bust a yuppie household for marijuana because they ordered hydroponic equipment off the internet.
No pot found, but they DID send those teabags to the lab and found themselves a whole lotta PUBLICITY, yup, the good ol boys, cleanin up the county for you.
Lesson: Dont use legal hydroponics or the cops will raid your house, grow outside in the dirt during LEGAL growing seasons or the porkers will confiscate your tomatoes with extreme prejudice.
They realize there is no such thing as bad publicity. Morons.....
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
My brother's girlfriend got adventurous one christmas and purchased NFL jerseys from some shady chinese website. Reportedly, she got them for about $20 each, plus shipping. We gushed over them--and scrutinzed them carefully--as we couldn't believe the quality at the price she paid. After that experience, I'm 100% convinced they're not "counterfeit" in the manufacturing sense, but instead they're pulled straight from the line on which the same "$200" jerseys are made, and sold on the side.
But the NFL is accused of hiding the dangers of the game from the players. They withheld their own studies which showed links of repeated concussions to a variety of mental health illnesses:
http://www.campbell-trial-lawy...
From the above link:
The NFL Committee did everything within its power to deny any causal link between multiple concussions and later-life cognitive decline. DeMaurice Smith, Executive Director of the NFLPA, described this NFL Committee policy: “[u]nfortunately, the NFL...diminished [independent] studies, [and] urged the suppression of [independent] findings...for years.
This is more like NASCAR hiding evidence from its drivers that repeated neck strain from cornering quickly has severe life altering impacts as you age.
If you also refrain from watching a bunch of millionaires play "Let's Pretend!" (aka acting) I'll give you credit for not being a hypocrite.
Until then, I'll just assume you are a faggot.
So many high end brands move their production to China sending blueprints of their lucrative products to sweatshops and then wonder why the market suddenly gets flooded with counterfeit/perfect copies. They only really have themselves to blame for selling out their own countrys workers in the name of more profit. +1 for making them foot the customs bill though, hopefully at a vastly inflated rate plus expenses.
China tends to donate seized counterfeit goods to charity. The US actually sued China at the WTO over this practice, and eventually lost.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
For Christmas a few years ago we got three 'china jerseys' for my 10 year old son because who wants to spend $100+ for a jersey, especially if it will only fit a year or two. $20 or so each, and I couldn't believe the quality. Sewn on lettering, numbers, etc. They also had Nike and NFL 'official' tags on them. (Yes, I know tags can be counterfeit as well). The Cam Newton jersey even had the 'Keep Pounding' embroidered in the inside collar. I was amazed, and looking at them would support your theory.
The only downside: the other two were Wes Welker New England and Percy Harvin Minnesota... Both traded about three months after Christmas.
There is a petition for that, with over 300,000 signatures. Go and add yours.
http://www.change.org/petition...
http://www.sacknfltaxbreaks.or...
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
You're still purchasing a product from the manufacturer. Not the same as an illegal download.
Potential copyright infringement, but that's more on the manufacturer. I want a #12 Jersey, and I might pay 50 bucks for it, regardless of where it comes from, but like you, I'm not shelling out 250+ for a shirt I wear once a week and do no work in.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
Way to go guys! Now go after Wall Street...
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This goes back to a point I have made repeatedly. Wealthy people and corps should pay more taxes because they use our legal framework more often (and it's usually crafted to their benefit).
Cheap storage VM.
Shut down businesses comprising millions of dollars worth of economic activity.
From the article: "Counterfeit goods cost the global economy an estimated $250 billion each year. More than 1.2 million jobs in New Jersey, 900,000 jobs in Colorado and 1.2 million in the state of Washington depend on IP intensive industries meaning counterfeits have a direct impact on the economy in the home states of both teams and the host of the Super Bowl."
How, exactly, do people purchasing a good cost the world economy anything? Someone makes a product and another person buys it, viola, you have an economy where none was before. What they really need to say is that counterfeit goods are costing some rich sports agent and their marketing team who prey on the simpletons who elevate athletes to superstar status. That would be the truth.
You're lucky. The counterfeit windbreaker I saw someone wearing was pretty obvious that they'd cut some corners in the manufacturing... like leaving off the S at the end of the team name. The good part? It was in a European country and the guy wearing it probably didn't even know it was wrong.
The jerseys (the good sewn ones) are simply way too expensive. They're upwards of $250-300 and taht's more than I'm spending on a player who might be with the team for 3-4 years.
Wait, an official NFL jersey costs $250-$300?? Fucking really? No wonder they need the government to enforce their monopoly!
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
from the life threatening dangers of textile commerce.
Wealthy people and corps should pay more taxes because they use our legal framework more often (and it's usually crafted to their benefit).
They generally DO pay more taxes. The question is whether they pay a fair amount. What constitutes a "fair" amount is the matter under debate.
After that experience, I'm 100% convinced they're not "counterfeit" in the manufacturing sense, but instead they're pulled straight from the line on which the same "$200" jerseys are made, and sold on the side.
Happens all the time actually. I've been to China and spoken with business owners there. It is ridiculously common for contract manufacturers to do exactly what you are describing. They'll make extra and simply divert some through a distribution channel other than what the customer intended.
I only buy counterfeit jerseys now and if you find the right source they're rarely much different from the real thing. The only "level" of jersey that shows a great deal of difference is the genuine "on-field" jersey that is supposed to be exactly like the one the players wear. In the case of those yes, the real ones are made of better, thicker material with stronger seams. I can get one for a fraction of the real price though that is almost indistinguishable from the real thing at 10 feet and that's all I care about. I own two real jerseys. Both cost upwards of $250 and both players are long gone from the team I follow. Won't make that mistake again. Buying a real jersey is something you do towards the end of a HoF players career, not on draft day before you know anything about them or the career they're going to have. It's so easy to waste your money on this stuff if you go authentic. Every year I contact "My man in China" via email and get his latest URL. he moves all the time and gets busted every now and then. He's back up in days at a new site and his jerseys are around $30 for a beautiful copy with all sewn letters/numbers. He has new players available within weeks (sometimes even days) of their coming to a team. I buy about 4-5 jerseys a year this way and when a player gets traded, or cut I don't get burned like I did before. What always amazes me is how good the fakes are. A really bad screen-printed pretend jersey at Academy is over $60 and I can get a great looking fake on-field jersey for $30. Who in the hell is guying the screen-printed crap? Every time they shut him down he pops back up. That's the new economic reality IP holders. Time to get your prices back to reality. If Keki in China can afford to crank out hundreds of thousands of jerseys like this and ship them in small packages all over the US then it's hard to miss that the NFL is fucking over it's fans with overpriced crap.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Wait, an official NFL jersey costs $250-$300?? Fucking really? No wonder they need the government to enforce their monopoly!
Sure because people are willing to pay that. It's not like anyone has a gun to their head when buying one. It's the very definition of a discretionary purchase.
I think the people spend that much money on a jersey have a room temperature IQ but it's their money...
Actually a lot of them don't do this anymore (pull them off the same line). That was a very common practice a few years ago where the company that produced the official product did so with the intention of running a "third shift" to make goods that would go unreported and sell them under the table. Now the guys making fakes (and nothing but fakes) are so good at what they do that something simple like an NFL logo is just too easy to copy perfectly. I buy them all the time and rarely ever see any kind of big gaff on their part. One exception was a jersey I ordered for a Saints fan friend who wanted to piggyback on my jersey order. He wanted a Pierre Thomas jersey for his wife and he got it. Problem was it came in as "THMOS" on the back of the jersey instead of "THOMAS". I told the people I ordered it from about it and they sent me a replacement, no questions asked. I was really surprised at that kind of customer support from basically a counterfeiter. Then we opened it and saw that it too said "THMOS" on the back. Oh well. Win some you lose some...
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
How, exactly, do people purchasing a good cost the world economy anything?
In a variety of ways depending on the nature of the counterfeit good. Some problems with counterfeits are more serious than others.
1) Many counterfeit goods are produced by criminal (think Mafia, etc) organizations. Purchasing these goods subsidizes these organizations.
2) Counterfeit goods weaken incentives to produce innovative and/or higher quality goods
3) Many counterfeit goods are not produced to appropriate safety standards and constitute a health/safety hazard.
4) Counterfeits undermine the relationship between customer and buyer as the buyer can no longer be sure of the product they are receiving
5) Counterfeits damage brand reputations and value (and yes these are important)
6) Counterfeits weaken incentives to conduct research and development. No point in paying for research if everyone else doesn't have to.
7) Many counterfeit goods are not produced to appropriate performance and quality standards. Some are outright frauds such as placebo pills.
I love how they call it counterfeit, like it's somehow of lesser quality than the chinese shit they sell themselves.
It might be the identical product off the same line but when you buy something you aren't just paying for the good itself. You are paying for a brand and what that implies including the entire process of how that product is delivered to you and who stands behind it if there is a problem with it. Counterfeit goods are a problem because of the free rider problem. If you can solve that problem then you might have a point.
The problem is that those people selling it out the back door don't have to pay for advertising, product development, brand development, R&D or any of a number of other costs that make it worthwhile to sell that product in the first place.
Or it may well be that the quality control on the counterfeit merchandise is HIGHER than the QC for the official NFL. Just because the counterfeit is cheaper in price doesn't mean it is lower in quality. 90% of the price of the merchandise is the logo.
Two problems with that. First is that if you haven't addressed the free rider problem. There are lots of costs besides simply the cost of manufacturing the good. Advertising, distribution, brand building, R&D, marketing, etc. These are very significant and the counterfeiters do not have to pay them but still reap the benefits of them. That is a HUGE problem and is 100% of the reason we have patents and copyright.
The second is that the reason the logo has value is because of the relationship between the customer and the seller. Counterfeit goods often damage that relationship. If I buy something I want to be sure it is exactly what I thought it was. I want to be sure of who made it, where they made it, how they made it and what they will do to stand behind it. Sometimes those things are important to me and if I cannot be sure of those things then the person selling them is committing a fraud. Maybe sometimes we are ok with knowing that something is a knockoff but most of the time there is a lot more to be lost by condoning counterfeit goods than there is by allowing them.
Think of it this way. If someone who looked kind of similar to you (maybe eerily similar) showed up at your place of work tomorrow and started working your job and collecting your paycheck despite never having had to pay for your education, would you be ok with that? Same situation here. Someone has invested a lot of time and money and resources into developing and making that product and then someone else simply copies their work without having to do the hard and expensive bits and claims it as their own. If you cannot figure out why that is a bad thing then I'm not sure you'll ever understand economics.
Corporations want to be free to exploit cheap labor in developing countries. Well, developing countries want to exploit the demand and deep pockets of the first world. Counterfeits are a natural and essential part of a true competitive market. But corporations would rather operate under an imperialist market, where they use the force of big government to control the flow of goods and capital.
Those elite professionals who even make it to the NFL
Have you ever heard a football player speak? I don't really want to defend these idiots, but I think that some of them might not understand the severity of the trauma they're subjecting their bodies to. Most probably are too stupid to care, but they are actually getting hurt at work and their employer is denying that the job is causing the injury.
So now they can put on their cars:
"ICE is the official police force of the NFL"
The NFL’s Super Bowl Con: Hosting the Big Game Isn’t an Economic Score For Cities
In the article, an official justifies the sting by saying they are protecting American jobs. What a joke. How many American jobs are protected by protecting merchandise made in China? The real issue here is the money that doesn't make it to NFL franchise coffers.
I've seen college stores selling sweatshirts. There were two versions, the regular one and the "Champion" logo version. They were the same sweatshirt but the one with the logo was more expensive. If you bought the one with the logo, they took a regular sweatshirt and ironed on a champion logo. I haven't bought a "logo" piece of merchandise since.
Keeping all the most important "people" in America (at least, people on paper) safe.
Yes, but now that the information is out there, how many current players have retired early because of it? Only one that I've heard of. Whether or not the NFL deliberately hid information from past players probably wouldn't have made any difference either.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
So, instead of just doing without, you pay someone else for a crappy knockoff and still look like you are supporting the people you claim to be mad at. Good job.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
I agree with you but caution your use of that analogy.
To complete your analogy you'd have to state that your education took 5 minutes and cost you almost nothing. That changes the equation a bit, especially regarding corporate empathy.
Honestly I find it very hard to side with a company who lives up to nothing but it's name. This isn't years of hard effort, it's 5 minutes slapping a logo on a shirt often within restrictions of a strict set of colours and patterns which may be used. I don't really feel for them when someone copies their "hard work".
Now designing a clever new set of electronics or a fancy new way of doing something maybe, creating shirts that a reasonably priced with some awesome designs on them like the kine you see at Threadless, yes, but slap a logo on something and charge 6x the normal cost? No wonder they are such a target for counterfeiters.
The Republican Party is also a non-profit, as is the Democratic Party.
Being a non-profit doesn't make one charitable.
Learn to love Alaska
You don't get sports, do you. It's about a fun camaraderie among fellow fans. I'm not wearing a jersey to support the NFL or the owner or the commissioner. I'm wearing it for my team and that player. If you don't get it, some people think you're just as stupid for shelling out $300 more for a high-end graphics card.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
There is no free rider problem. That billionaires are whining about some Chinese shop making $0.10 off a shirt that didn't give the NFL billionaires 90% profit isn't a "problem". Are you asserting that the counterfeit merchandise manufactured in China is shipped by the NFL, then stolen in the USA for sale?
You are defending the billionaire's loss, when we don't see one in the first place.
Learn to love Alaska
Taxes are paid at the team level. Otherwise it would be double taxation. Each team shares in the NFL revenue. It's why small market teams can even survive.