Day after cops seized fake Apple products alongside counterfeit items worth £600,000 in Northern Ireland during two connected raids conducted in Belfast and Portadown on March 28, 2024, a guy from Texas has been charged with trademark counterfeiting after being discovered in possession of counterfeit Apple items valued at over $20,000.
Houston police pulled over Conelle Davis on March 29 who was operating a stolen Toyota Camry. When the police inspected the car they discovered thirteen AirPods, eleven Apple Watches, and five iPads. These things would have cost more than $20,000 in total if they had been real.
The packaging and Apple items under investigation were verified to be authentic by the Harris County Precinct Five Constable’s Office. However, the products themselves couldn’t live up to the descriptions. For example, an older, used, or defective product was sitting in a package marketed as a new iPad Pro.
According to reports, this isn’t the first time police caught Davis for such an offense, he has been detained twice in Harris County on charges of forging trademarks. He has been charged with similar things before.
Dennis Underwood, CEO of CyberCrucible (a cybersecurity company), in a statement to Click2Houston, said:
“I haven’t seen this before. It’s really interesting because just about every one example you can give to say, ‘Oh, this is how you check for a counterfeit.’ The counterfeiters and the people who swap out devices read the same blog post and the same how-to, so it’s not just one thing you need to look for. It’s a combination of things.”
Two days before the Northern Ireland raids, police apprehended two kingpins, Zhimin and Zhiting Liao, who had 10,000 fake iPhones in San Deigo. The leaders of this international gang are now facing 51 months in prison for this offense.