Imitation Nation

In this episode, Shabbir and Sven talk about…

Counterfeit forever stamps. Shabbir bought stamps that are too cheap to be true and is sending three letters to Sven, two with fake stamps and one with a real one, to see if they arrive. Remember, the US Postal Inspectors would like you to report fake stamps here: https://www.uspis.gov/report

Counterfeit airbags. We discuss Michigan’s one-of-a-kind auto fraud task force, and their work to fight counterfeit air bags and other fake auto parts. Learn more here: https://www.autobodynews.com/news/michigan-man-charged-with-selling-counterfeit-airbags

More disturbingly is the fact that there may be 81,000 fake air bags floating around in cars: https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/04/michigan-man-allegedly-sold-counterfeit-air-bags-81k-vehicles-may...

Go now and donate to support Sven's Police Unity Tour 400 mile ride.

A pharmacy ordered Ozempic from a distributor out of Florida and dispensed it to a patient. It was one of those dial a dose pens and the dial didn’t match their prescription. They brought it back to the pharmacy, who correctly quarantined it and called the Board of Pharmacy.  And this is the best part:

The BOP investigator came over, pulled out his phone and the new magic decoder ring called PULSE that checks the serial numbers, and it was identified as FAKE almost immediately.

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CBP has seized 360,000 fake forever stamps in two separate seizures in Birmingham, AL and Chicago, IL.

CBP Birmingham

CBP Chicago

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In January, the Department of Transportation issued an alert about the massive growth in counterfeit car parts, including fake airbags. They said that in 2024 alone they’d seized over 200,000 fake parts, almost double what they seized in 2023. 

The most disturbing area is fake airbags. 490 were seized entering the country in 2024, and that’s 10x growth in fakes from 2023. And the crime here is in full swing: Homeland Security Investigations say they have 40 open investigations, right now, into fake auto parts.

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Go now and donate to support Sven's Police Unity Tour 400 mile ride.

Sven and Shabbir discuss three big stories of the wee:

• Reuters story on the Brazilian coffee industry’s concerns with products that have Brazil in the name of the product, but don’t contain Brazilian sourced coffee beans. 

• A case, investigated by Homeland Security Investigation, and prosecuted by The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois in East St. Louis IL of a woman who plead guilty to selling counterfeit designer goods and cosmetics.

•  The NYPD just busted not the street vendors, but one of the warehouses that supplies the street vendors. They said in just the three room apartment they seized they found over $40 million dollars worth of counterfeit handbags, sunglasses, Apple products, etc.

Since clothing is not a regulated product like medicine, people who want to make cheap knock offs have a lot more ability to infringe on the original design by making a few changes. What we haven’t talked about is the fact that the US has a policy of not allowing clothing made with cotton that used slave labor, which is a problem in the Chinese textile industry. Listen to learn more about how counterfeiters exploit import loopholes, and all of the other knockoff news this week.

This week on Imitation Nation, Shabbir and Sven will tackle the case of "DrXanax" a Canadian national who was just sentenced to 30 years in the U.S. They also cover the indictment of a New York aesthetician who allegedly posed as a medical professional while injecting clients with counterfeit Botox. Lastly they describe a Port of Long Beach smuggling operation that sounds like the script of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Show notes:

Arden McCann prosecution

Documents: Indictment (2020), Guilty plea (2023), Sentencing memo (2024)

Learn more about OCDETF and the lengths they have gone to prosecute Canadian fake pill sellers in our five part video series about their earlier prosecution, Operation Denial.

Learn about the man that American authorities think is the notorious Canadian fake Xanax dealer called AlpraKing. US authorities think it’s Canadian Alexander Beaudry, and are working on his extradition.

New York Fake Botox indictment

PSM coverage of the fake Botox outbreak of 2024

Joey Grant Luther Criminal Complaint [PDF]

FDA alert for fake Botox found in the U.S.

CDC MMWR article about patient harm during this outbreak

Long Beach Smuggling operation

Indictment (2024)

Sven and Shabbir discuss the biggest stories in counterfeits for the last two weeks.

Walmart.com "Birkin Bag" controversy

• Yahoo! News
• Columbia Journal for Law and the Arts

The U.S. Trade Representative's Notorious Markets Report

• See the press release and the full report.

Xiaofei "Sophie" Chen arrest and prosecution

• PSM copy of the criminal complaint

Sven and Shabbir make their predictions for big developments in counterfeiting and counterfeit prosecutions for 2025

This week, Shabbir Safdar and Sven Bergmann cover the arrest of a Houston, Texas woman accused of posing as a medical professional and injecting fake lip fillers, a woman in Medina, Tennessee busted selling research-only compounds as weight loss injections, and an update on the lawsuit filed by grieving families against Snapchat. Listen now.

This week, Shabbir Safdar and Sven Bergmann cover an $18 million dollar counterfeit Gibson guitar seizure in Long Beach, the resolution of a longstanding counterfeit HIV drug case, counterfeit bourbon, and a live  DSCSA demo that happened at the American Society for Pharmacy Law conference. Listen now.