Have you ever found a bust too big to keep to yourself? This is what happened to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, as they’ve gotten their hands on a shipment of many fake Super Bowl championship rings. They’ve all been sent from China to the St. Louis area. Upon the day of November 11th, U.S. Customs officers have discovered hundreds of fake rings through an express consignment operations hub, within St. Louis. The assigned authorities had found a huge shipment that holds about 422 rings stating “Super Bowl Champion” while holding a design of three Lombardi Trophies. The shipment had been arriving from China. All while the shipping had been sent to a new residence in Jerseyville, Illinois, all according to a news release from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
A specific import specialist showed off how the rings themselves weren’t authentic enough through a recordation process. There was even an import specialist that kept looking to see if the rings could possibly be authentic! But they weren’t, which is bittersweet. Because people love real things and hate the word “authentic.” They had them held to the light of the Lombardi trophy, which itself showed how the counterfeits infringed upon an NFL properties trademark.
Counterfeit jewlery still to this day floods the e-commerce market.
All the while, the rings themselves had been focused on sports collectors and fans. There are plenty of officers in the field operations that are very well-trained in order to uncover counterfeit merch in support of the CBP’s goal of saving the public and the American economy.
It’s a blatant reminder that the United States is dedicated to protect consumers from the evils seeping into the U.S. economy. Of course, consumers keep buying online or from third-party vendors, while the officers stay still at the frontline for guarding against defrauders that hope to make more money to sell fake merchandise through.
Should any of the items be real, the manufacturer’s retail price for the shipment may have been valuable for around $300,000. Customs officers state how the shipment allows sellers to steal advantage of the varied sports fans to sell fake merchandise in order to make profits for more illegal activity.
Fake merchandise poses a real threat as shipments with fake merchandise devalue real items while taking jobs for people involving the transactions that will possibly lead to any sort of contaminants.
Custom officers are going to hold the shipment for the moment and search for if the shipment of the rings could possibly be a trend, though it may even be a criminal operation.
It’s no problem to buy knockoffs, but it is a problem to send off potentially dangerous funding for organized crime that could be transactional for terrorism.
