NCPD Announces Major Counterfeit Athletic Shoe Seizure to Benefit Haiti

Friday, 30 July 2010 00:00

Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey announced recently that as a result of a joint investigation with the IRS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York-Brooklyn, the Nassau County Police Department Asset Forfeiture Unit seized over 20,000 counterfeit athletic shoes that have a real value of approximately $85 a pair, which values the seizure at approximately $1.7 million. The seizure came out of a 2008 case where two individuals where arrested and charged with crimes such as Trafficking in Counterfeit Goods or Services and Money Laundering.

The athletic shoes have been donated to World Vision, a humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide. World Vision will be distributing the 20,000 pairs of athletic shoes to the people of Haiti.

The athletic shoes were picked up on July 14th and required two trucks to haul away the 1,250 cases, with 16 pairs of athletic shoes to each case. The two individuals charged in 2008 were Jin Ming Yu, 43 of Woodside and Feng Ye, 44 of Corona. In addition to the athletic shoes, batteries, battery labels, battery labeling machines and a variety of counterfeit baseball caps were also seized.