Ferndale woman charged with selling fake designer items as genuine goods
2 min readA federal grand jury has billed a Ferndale girl with several counts of trafficking in counterfeit products.
Kara Suneva Allen is accused of marketing counterfeit handbags, jewellery and other items and representing them as goods manufactured by legitimate designer models, in accordance to a news release from the business office of U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, Nicholas W. Brown.
The 42-calendar year-old lady ran a enterprise termed Keepin Up With Kara LLC out of a warehouse house in Ferndale. In March, a web-site for the company advertised 467 products for sale that appeared to be made by Adidas, Burberry, Cartier, Chanel, Christian Dior, Fendi, Gucci, Hermès, Louis Vuitton, MCM, Nike, Prada, Saint Laurent, Tiffany & Co., Tory Burch, and UGG, in accordance to case information.
The goods ended up priced drastically below the suggested retail cost for genuine goods.
In August and September of 2021, a few shipments from China and Hong Kong that were being headed to Allen’s firm were seized from mail in Oakland, California. The shipments contained a broad wide range of counterfeit items, and although Allen was notified of the seizures, she hardly ever requested to have the shipments produced, in accordance to an investigation.
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Transport records confirmed that about 46 shipments from China and Hong Kong have been despatched to the Ferndale warehouse in which Allen’s small business operated involving September 2021 and March 2022.
To doc Allen’s sales, an undercover agent bought things through the company’s site. In just one case, the agent purchased a Louis Vuitton-branded handbag for $110. The proposed retail rate for that certain genuine Louis Vuitton handbag is $1,690.
A representative from Louis Vuitton verified the purse procured from the web site was counterfeit.
Right after getting lookup and seizure warrants, police seized a big amount of counterfeit products from the Ferndale warehouse as nicely as Allen’s vehicle and dwelling on May 2.
A conviction for trafficking counterfeit merchandise carries a sentence of up to 10 decades in prison and a $2,000,000 fantastic.
The circumstance is remaining investigated by Homeland Stability Investigations with help from U.S. Customs and Border Defense, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Place of work, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Ferndale Police Section, and the National Intellectual House Legal rights Coordination Centre.
