Investigators from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office and Agents from Homeland Security Investigations teamed up to take out a long time counterfeiter, who was running her counterfeit operation out of the Riverside Discount Mall. These investigators take brand protection very serious and have focused their efforts to stomp out all intellectual property crimes in Riverside County. They have focused their efforts on taking on every case with the end game in mind. These guys have arrested several small time vendors and flipped them to much larger targets and major suppliers. One of their recent past cases yielded over 2.1 million dollars worth of counterfeit goods. Their efforts and good old police work have really paid off with some outstanding cases! In the most recent case, they were provided information about a subject and her trademark counterfeiting activities. The subject, who was already served with a cease and desist notice for her sales of counterfeit merchandise obviously did not take the hint and like so many others, could not give up her counterfeiting ways because she was making way too much money. Law enforcement arranged to take the subject out. They arranged for an undercover buy to be made. The undercover entered the location and contacted the subject. The subject admitted she was selling counterfeit goods to the undercover. The undercover made a buy from the subject and videotaped the entire transaction. Law enforcement entered the location shortly after and arrested the subject for counterfeiting. They ended up seizing about $100,000 in counterfeit goods. During the investigation, the Investigators gathered information about potential suppliers. I am sure that the Riverside County DA's Office and HSI are following up on the information and they will once again be getting another major seizure from working the case from the bottom to the top!
By KBuckner, Investigative Consultants
