Officers Sweep Fairgrounds Swap Meet for Fake Goods

A team of undercover officers swept a popular swap meet at the Orange County Fairgrounds on Saturday morning, seizing a truckload of bogus goods and citing vendors on misdemeanor charges of selling counterfeit goods.

About 20 Orange County sheriff’s deputies and representatives from companies such as Guess? and Dooney & Bourke fanned out at the Orange County Market Place to seize counterfeit handbags, sunglasses, T-shirts and other products in an attempt to control what has become a lucrative market in imitations, Sheriff’s Sgt. Jim Lazzaro said.

Joseph Kadash, an investigator for Guess? Inc., said U.S. companies lose about $200 billion a year in revenue due to fraudulent products, according to figures from the International Anti-Counterfeit Coalition, a group that tracks such businesses.

“It’s pure theft,” he said. “They’re stealing.”

Authorities said about 10 vendors were cited and released Saturday. If convicted, each vendor could face up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, Lazzaro said.

Saturday’s sweep began at 9 a.m. as buyers from the name-brand companies trained in detecting imitations set out shopping among the booths with undercover deputies in tow.

In one case, a buyer attempting to purchase a Dooney & Bourke wallet asked why there wasn’t a label on the one item that she wanted. The salesman took the wallet, glued a label on it and handed it back to the woman, said sheriff’s Deputy Yomar Cleary.

“I wanted to laugh but I couldn’t,” said Cleary, who witnessed the sale.

At one booth, deputies seized about 1,000 imitation Dooney & Bourke key chains, wallets and handbags. As authorities made the arrests, some customers continued to shop until they were told that the booth was closed. Some walked away saying, “Poor guy,” referring to the booth’s owner.

Lazzaro said he realized most of the vendors targeted Saturday were “family people just trying to make a living,” but at the top of the counterfeiting industry there are producers making millions on the backs of American companies.

“That’s who we want to get,” he said, “and this is one way we can try to get them.”

Typically, the products are made in China using cheap labor and materials, then transported to major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, where fake labels are added, authorities said. The imitations sell for only a fraction of the genuine article.