An intercepted shipment of fake NFL jerseys to a Utah man was part of a federal investigation which has taken down 70 websites selling counterfeit NFL jerseys.
According to a report in the Deseret News, Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have shut down 70 websites which deal in fake goods.
“This operation targeted criminals making a buck by trying to trick consumers into believing they were buying name brand products from legitimate websites when in fact they were buying counterfeits from illegal but sophisticated impostor sites located overseas,” ICE director John Morton said in statement.
“The impostor sites were simply a fraud from start to finish and served no purpose other than to defraud and dupe unwary shoppers.”
The sites which were shut down included several with names close to the real thing, including nflshopjerseys.com, nflshopjerseys.net and nflshop18.com.
Some of the websites had sophisticated means of tricking customers, including data encryption on their websites, which apparently convinced some customers they were buying the real thing.
Investigators interviewed a man in Sandy, Utah, who ordered more than $1,000 worth of jerseys priced at $18.50 each.
Now I’m no U.S. Marshal, but given the NFL’s insatiable desire and uncanny ability to collect others’ money, such a price might have alerted me to the fact something might not have been on the up-and-up.