Maplewood Attorney Confesses to Smuggling Contraband into Essex County Jail
The local attorney pled guilty to smuggling marijuana and tobacco into the jail in exchange for cash payments of $500 a package. An attorney from Maplewood, New Jersey, today admitted his involvement in a scheme to smuggle contraband, including marijuana and tobacco, into the Essex County Jail, a federal pretrial detention facility, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.
Brian Kapalin, 67, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper to an information charging him with one count of conspiring to smuggle contraband into a federal detention facility.
Lear More
Virginia crime panel endorses cigarette licensing
RICHMOND—Virginia lawmakers should license retailers to sell cigarettes to clamp down on smuggling from the state with the second-lowest tobacco tax in the nation, a commission recommended Tuesday. The Virginia State Crime Commission voted 8–5 to endorse cigarette licensing and have the Alcoholic Beverage Control Department enforce it. The panel also backed measures to improve the effectiveness of search-and-rescue efforts. It also postponed until next year a decision on whether to make texting of sexually explicit photos by teenagers a misdemeanor.
Commission endorsements carry weight but do not guarantee legislative approval. The cigarette proposal likely faces long odds in a House of Delegates dominated by conservative Republicans averse to increased state regulation. GOP House members on the commission voted against the measure. Thirty-six other states require cigarette retailers to obtain a license.
Lear More
Special task force set up to tackle fake cigarette smuggling
A new task force has been set up to tackle the gangs who are netting millions of pounds through smuggling and selling counterfeit cigarettes. The trade in illicit tobacco is becoming increasingly big business for organised criminals. While those who buy it may think they are getting a bargain, they could be putting themselves in serious danger.
Lear More
How eBay, Amazon and Alibaba Fuel the World’s Top Illegal Industry — the Counterfeit Products Market
Over the last year, Craig Crosby has bought more than 250 items on eBay. The 6-foot-3 ex-cop with bushy white hair and a white mustache — a cop’s mustache — keeps each item in its own Ziploc bag, carefully labeled as if evidence from a crime scene, because in a way it is. At least that’s how Crosby sees it. “This is now the largest criminal enterprise in the world,” Crosby says in a baritone drawl, sounding almost like John Wayne if he’d grown up in Reseda. “It actually is more profitable than illegal drug dealing.” All 250 items are counterfeits — counterfeit jeans, counterfeit watches, counterfeit respiratory masks, the kind you might wear if you had to remove asbestos.
Lear More
292 counterfeit domains seized by law enforcement
Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland security Investigations and law enforcement agencies from 19 countries have seized 292 web domains that were used for the sale of counterfeit goods, according to Europol. The counterfeit products included luxury items, as well as “sportswear, electronics, pharmaceuticals and pirated goods like movies and music,” the BBC reports.
The operation was part of a project called “In Our Sites (IOS) Transatlantic V.” The law enforcement groups have been receiving leads since August from various trademark holders.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/12/02/europol-seizes-22-counterfeit-domains/
Lear MoreCounterfeit Frozen toys seized from shop in Nottinghamshire
A haul of counterfeit dolls, umbrellas, watches, backpacks and blankets were seized by Nottinghamshire County Council.Hundreds of potentially dangerous Frozen toys and products have been seized from a toy shop in Nottinghamshire.A haul of counterfeit dolls, umbrellas, watches, backpacks and blankets were seized by Nottinghamshire County Council after concerns were raised that the fake goods could burst in to flames or strangle children.The Daily Mail reports that the Council found that the fancy dress costumes and pyjamas did not conform to flammability standards.
Lear More
Crime Commission Takes New Tactic on Cigarette Smuggling
In spite of recent stronger penalties, traffickers are still smuggling Virginia’s low-tax cigarettes to other states—especially to New York City, where demand for the Commonwealth’s cigarettes is soaring due to the city’s high excise taxes. Some estimates suggest that 21 percent of Virginia cigarettes end up in other states, where profits are so high that many criminals would rather sell tobacco than heroin. But the State Crime Commission is recommending a different tactic to deter the traffickers.
http://wvtf.org/post/crime-commission-takes-new-tactic-cigarette-smuggling
Lear MoreSmuggling opportunities abounded for inmates at city jail, gang leader testifies
The way Tavon White describes it, being sent to the Baltimore City Detention Center was no reason for Black Guerrilla Family gang members to stop hustling. Key to keeping the money flowing, however, was recruiting corrections officers to smuggle tobacco, marijuana, prescription pills and cell phones into the jail. The officers were also needed to transport the items from one section of the jail to the other, and to help tip inmates to looming “shakedowns.”
Lear More
Government collaboration needed to address counterfeiting
The Australian Government should work more closely with regulators and governments throughout the Asia Pacific, in an effort to address the challenges of global counterfeits. That’s the opinion of Mervyn Rea, National Customer Relationship Manager (Australia and NZ) and Head of Customer Management (Asia) for Zurich Risk Engineering.
Last week, Insurance Business reported the recently-released Zurich report, ‘Counterfeit products: new risks in global value chains’, detailing the rapid rise in the production and organisational quality of counterfeiting and the affects that has on commerical insurance.
Lear More
Online markets are source of counterfeit products, say experts
Say the genuineness of the products supplied by the online players has to be verified.
Questioning the genuineness of the products sold by the online retailers, apex industry chamber Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and industry (FICCI) has sought scrutiny of these items to check counterfeiting.
“Online markets are also source of distributing smuggling and counterfeiting products. The genuineness of the products supplied by the online players has to be verified. One cannot deny that they do not have counterfeit products,” Deep Chand, Advisor, FICCI CASCADE (Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroying Economy) told media persons on the sidelines of a seminar on Curbing Counterfeiting and Smuggling – An Imperative for Indian Economy, here.
http://www.afaqs.com/news/story/42635_Online-markets-are-source-of-counterfeit-products-say-experts
Lear More