NYPD seizes $10M in knockoffs on Chinatown street

Kerry Burke, Elizabeth Keogh, New York Daily News
·2 min read
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Police seized $10 million in knockoff merchandise being peddled in Chinatown on Monday, officials said.

Cops called to Canal St. and Broadway in the wake of “numerous complaints” arrested 17 people and cleared out three truckloads of counterfeit items, NYPD Chief of Patrol Jeffrey Maddrey said at at news conference.

“This is not a victimless crime,” he said. “There was property everywhere, merchandise everywhere. It really negatively impacts small businesses and quality of life.”

The top charge the sellers were hit with was trademark counterfeiting of property over $1,000, which is a felony.

A counterfeit recognition specialist who works with NYPD said most of the goods illegally sold on city streets are coming out of China.

“This stuff is poor quality merchandise,” said Bill Frieberg, whose been a contractor with the NYPD for 15 years. “99% of it, you can just look at it and tell. It’s an old adage, but if the deal is too good to be true, it is.”

Maddrey said there are “layers of victims” when the high-end knockoffs are sold illegally, including the high-fashion companies, businesses in the neighborhood, passersby and local residents.

“Our message is simple to the small businesses: We hear you, we support you and we will continue to do these operations.”

Democratic Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, whose district covers Chinatown, took issue with the bust.

“Hassling 17 street vendors who are just trying to pay their rent is not a serious approach to addressing intellectual property theft,” she said in a statement to the Daily News. “According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, our country loses hundreds of billions of dollars every year due to fashion IP theft unfolding on the international level.”

Maddrey said the department will be teaming up with local businesses and community partners to educate vendors on the legal way to obtain a general business license, and warned enforcement will be ramped up in the coming weeks.

“We recognize during the holidays, activities such as this will increase and our efforts to deter this conduct and to investigate this conduct will be ongoing,” he said.

In the event any of the people charged are undocumented, the NYPD will not investigate immigration statuses. “The NYPD does not and will not ask any type of immigration status questions,” a police spokesman said in a statement.

“This problem does not begin or end on the streets of Chinatown,” Niou said, noting big chains have been accused of ripping off independent designers. “Arresting street vendors does nothing to stop the systemic problem of design theft, it just distracts from the tough work of actually protecting intellectual property.”