Imitation Nation

PSM released a report this week on fishy freight shipments of medicine into the country, using data we pulled from the FDA’s medical freight shipments database. We are finding two kinds of fraud here. First, we’re seeing shipping manifests where the manufacturer listed on the report is not an FDA-registered entity, which means it’s been made in a facility never inspected by the FDA. Which means it’s illegal to enter the country.

Second is that we’re seeing people misdeclare the product code on an item to evade interdiction.  We found two Schedule 1 controlled substances, mescaline and LSD, coded as anti-depressants and antibiotics. The codes said antidepressant, but the description in text said LSD.  I’m guessing they just have machine scanning of codes and are not even looking at the text.

Third, a Florida district judge has granted Nike a partial win in a legal battle with a social media influencer, finding that he had infringed the sportswear giant’s trademarks through selling counterfeit goods. Social media influencer Eben Fox, who posts under the name Cedaz, had amassed more than a million followers online posting regular content about counterfeits, which Fox also refers to as “reps”, “replicas”, or “fakes”.  The Judge found that it was “undisputed” that Fox sold counterfeit Nike goods in connection with the popular mobile phone payment app CashApp, and that Fox posted counterfeit Nike shoes for sale on the social media platform Discord.

We’re seeing a lot of really weird things springing up around the trade war and what Shabbir is seeing in online discussions is wild, like customs agents talking about a spike in country of origin fraud combined with transhipping. Sven is noticing that there’s a big spike in demand for bonded warehouses, so people managing cross border inventory have a place to stage goods until there’s a break in tariffs. [Story1, Story2]

Sven’s also noticing manufacturers pitching cheaper versions of high end goods at a discount because it doesn’t have the logo on it.

The end of de minimis started on Friday May 2nd. That affects 1.36bn packages that enter the country every year. This change will affect both consumers that buy cheap products from China but also businesses in the U.S. that source their products or parts from China. We’re expecting a rise in the technique of trans-shipping to evade the end of Chinese de minimis packages.

The US Trade Representative released the 2025 “Special 301 Report” on Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement. There are eight countries on the Priority Watch List: Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela, and eighteen on the Watch list: Algeria, Barbados, Belarus, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Türkiye, and Vietnam.

Issues with countries cited in the report include poor enforcement of local counterfeit manufacturing, piracy of intellectual property, bad faith trademark enforcement, and poor enforcement of trade secrets, copyright law, and patent infringement.

We’re also tracking this dispute, which is both a federal criminal case and a state attorney general case over where body armor plates, designed to protect law enforcement were made. The vendor in question is accused of using Chinese-made products and claiming they were made in the U.S. The DOJ also stated that these body armor plates failed testing, which is a catastrophic consequence for something like body armor. According to the DOJ, Customs and Border Protection detected these packages during an inspection inside a larger freight shipment in a truck crossing the border from Canada to the U.S.

AI being used to do fraud at scale, including a report from Europol, and a report from Food and Beverage Magazine. Also, AI is being used to generate patent applications, which is probably going to bury a lesser-staffed USPTO.

Shabbir talked about the Amazon Brand Protection Report, which makes him want legislation to ensure all marketplaces work hard to avoid counterfeit products. Shein’s troubles trying (or not trying) to rid their platform of counterfeit Coach bags is worth a listen.

Finally we talk about the same problems in Europe, where it’s estimated that 85% of products from low cost online platforms are counterfeit, and their de minimis problem is three times as big as the United States at 4.6bn packages a year.

Sven would like you to take a moment and appreciate the Plagarius Awards, given to best counterfeit products found online each year.

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)