CINCINNATI — As online shopping ramps up, so does access to fake luxury goods and fraudulent products. In some cases, those products can be so dangerous to consumers, they can turn deadly.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized 346 counterfeit goods in the Cincinnati area that violated intellectual property rights in FY23, according to CBP officials. Had those items been legitimate, they would have been worth more than $12,800,000, according to CBP.
Products that are most-commonly counterfeited include jewelry, watches and handbags.
“You could go to New York City 30 years ago into Chinatown and buy counterfeit pretty much whatever you wanted,” said Eric Zizelman, chief supervisory CBP officer. “The difference is now that the accessibility and the ease that that stuff can come into the country.”
Social media has made finding higher-quality counterfeits even easier. Videos promoting “dupes” and counterfeit luxury goods have racked up thousands of views.
Zizelman said the industry has exploded, which has led to new challenges for officers.
“We have a bigger pool of items that we have to look through to try and find these [volatile] things,” he said.
Officers inspect roughly half of 1% of all packages that come into the port, according to Zizelman.
“Given the volumes that we see, the staffing that we have and the expertise that we've gained over time, we've honed our skills to know what we need to look at it,” he said.
All packages are scanned for radiation.
Zizelman said officers receive a manifest from shippers and carriers electronically, which they review. From that list, officers decide which packages to screen.
Zizelman said companies pay CBP to register their trademarks, which allows officers to take enforcement action when they identify counterfeit goods. In some cases, representatives from those companies will train officers on what to look for.
Officers look at how items are shipped, and then zoom in on details to identify fraudulent products.
“This Stanley logo itself, it just doesn't look as crisp,” Zizelman said, while looking at a counterfeit Stanley cup. “Every once in a while, you can look at some of the wording that's on here. If the English doesn't make sense, or it's misspelled, clear giveaway.”
While WCPO 9 was inside the facility officers seized a shipment of chocolate bars that contained illegal mushrooms. WCPO 9 also saw officers seize a package containing chemotherapy medication. It was unclear that night if the medication was real or fake without further inspection.
Officers seized 486 fraudulent FDA-related items during FY23 at the Cincinnati Port. Those seizures include products like counterfeit Botox, facial fillers, human growth hormones and IUDs. If these products were all real, CBP officers said they would have been worth more than $3,300,000.
“Not everybody knows that they're purchasing an item that isn't legitimate,” Zizelman said.
These fraudulent items can be especially harmful and in some cases, potentially deadly.
“We've had instances where we've worked with FDA investigators that have found that some of this merchandise, some of that type of merchandise has been going to doctors, to nurses around the country, operating clandestine operations, making money on the side,” he said.
With so many packages coming through the port, WCPO 9 asked how many illicit shipments might be missed.
“It's inevitable that we're going to miss something, right?” Zizelman said. “But you have to understand that on a daily basis we're looking at intel and information from all over the country. We are utilizing the experience that all of our officers have, or they're utilizing it within their exam review or with their manifest review. If we don't catch it today, chances are we're catching it tomorrow.”
