On March 16, 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced results for fiscal year 2010.
ICE and CBP jointly combined to initiate 19,959 seizures, a 34% increase over 2009 numbers. Authorities seemed to focus efforts on seizures of products that posed a health or safety hazard to consumers, with seizures in this category up 97% over the previous year.
The total domestic value of counterfeit goods seized at the border in 2010 reportedly totaled $188.1 million.
"Fiscal year 2010 was a very successful year for the ICE-led Intellectual Property Coordination Center and our law enforcement partners," said ICE Director John Morton. "The protection of intellectual property is a top priority for Homeland Security Investigations, as counterfeit products represent a triple threat by delivering shoddy and sometimes dangerous, goods into commerce, by funding organized criminal activities and by denying Americans good-paying jobs. The IPR Center will continue to strengthen its efforts in 2011 in order to keep counterfeit products off our streets."
"The risks of counterfeit products go beyond damaging the reputation of a name on a label; consumers can put their health, or even their lives, at risk when they purchase seemingly harmless items such as medicines, perfume and holiday lights. Ultimately, the cost of purchasing a fake product is much greater than the savings and may result in catastrophic consequences," said CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin.
China continued to be the number one source country for counterfeit and pirated goods seized, accounting for 66 percent or $124.6 million of the total domestic value of seizures. Thailand again placed in the top 5 of problematic countries, showing its disproportionate involvement in the global supply and trans-shipment of fake goods. For the fifth year in a row, footwear was the top product seized, accounting for more than 24 percent of the entire domestic value of IPR-infringing goods. Our Asian IP practice (LGP Asia) was involved in a number of successful operations with Thai and US Customs for clients such as adidas, Puma and Nike in 2010, taking out Thailand-based websites involved in shipping goods to the US.
The top 10 categories of IPR-infringing products seized were footwear, consumer electronics, wearing apparel, handbags/wallets, optical media, computers/hardware, cigarettes, watches/parts, jewelry, and pharmaceuticals.
ICE is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and takes a leading role in rolling up criminal organizations responsible for producing, smuggling, and distributing counterfeit products. ICE has a mission to not only keep counterfeit products off our streets, but also on to dismantle the criminal organizations behind such illicit activity.
The annual intellectual property rights seizures report is now available on the CBP and ICE websites.