Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Haiti Earthquake Victims To Receive $10 Million Worth Of NYC's Counterfeit Goods

By EDMUND DeMARCHE

Counterfeit designer brand handbags on Canal Street in New York City’s Chinatown, a major destination for finding fake designer brand handbags

Ten truckloads of confiscated knockoff duds destined for the scrap heap will get a new life on the backs of Haiti earthquake victims, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said yesterday.

"I feel wonderful," said Hynes, standing in Red Hook by the trucks preparing to carry an estimated 125,000 tons of illegal threads worth $10 million. "It's a celebration -- certainly not a traditional prosecution."

The goods, sporting fake labels for such high-end companies as Nike, Ed Hardy, True Religion, Antik Denim, Diesel, Jordan, Rocawear, Ralph Lauren, Christian Audigier and Affliction, were confiscated from a Sunset Park storage facility in a 2009 raid.

Ordinarily, seized knockoffs are destroyed. But Hynes' office said the law allows goods to be reused if fake labels are removed and a tougher hurdle is cleared: The maker of the real-deal goods agrees.

"It wasn't easy," said Rackets Division Chief Michael Vecchione. "But when we explained what we'd use the clothes for, they came on board."

The relief organization World Vision in Pennsylvania will remove the goods' tags before shipping them out.



Source: NYPost

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