Long Beach customs agents seize 18,560 pairs of fake shoes

Tag : shoes fittings
LONG BEACH – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officersdiscovered 18,560 pairs of fake Nike sneakers inside two shippingcontainers that arrived from China.
The ship's manifest listed the containers as holding drainagepipeline fittings, but when officers at the Port of Long Beachopened them Monday they found the shoes instead.
“The average consumer who walks into a store I think would befooled by them,” said Bonnie Lemert, U.S. Customs and BorderProtection acting port director for the Los Angeles/Long BeachSeaport.
So far this year, the customs agency has seized at least eightcontainers of footwear, mostly the Nike brand, said the federalagency's spokesman Mike Fleming.
“The quality is getting quite good. So we work with thecopyright holders to help our officers spot fakes,” he said.
The shoes, which were appraised at $521,000, will be destroyed,Lemert said. If they were real, they would have been worth $2.6million.
Most fakes are sold on the internet, in mom-and-pop stores or atswap meets, Fleming said.
Last year, agents seized $20.6 million dollars of counterfeitmerchandise, and 80 percent of the fakes come from China,authorities said.