What’s the next best thing to selling stolen iPods? Apparently, making your own counterfeit versions. That’s what the Los Angeles Port Police discovered this week after seizing more than $10 million worth of fake Apple products from a downtown warehouse.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Los Angeles Port Police has shut down a “sophisticated downtown warehouse operation” while investigating a theft case. The bust nabbed more than $10 million worth of “counterfeit iPods, iPhones and other items” that had been shipped from Asia.
"This was a well-funded operation, and the counterfeits looked very authentic," said Ron Boyd, the L.A. Port Police chief, who noted that “a buyer might not have noticed anything awry until he or she got home and tried to hook up with iTunes.”
Ironically, a large portion of the phony goods were designed to look like older iPods, including the fatter iPod nano model from a couple years back, which “remain popular with some consumers,” according to L.A. Times.
Two Los Angeles residents were arrested during the bust and charged with the sale of counterfeit goods. Apparently, the fakes were shipped to the two men as individual parts, which were then “reassembled and labeled before being sold.”
L.A. Port Police found bank account receipts that show the men had generated more than $7 million in profits from the phony electronics, and the bust also included “stolen electronics, toys and blankets worth about $2.5 million” in addition to the counterfeit Apple products.
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(Image courtesy of Los Angeles Times)
