I would never buy something fake, but I can understand why people do.  Some NFL merchandise is really expensive & fans want to rep their team without paying an arm & leg – so they turn to the fake stuff. Well the NFL isn’t having it!  The NFL’s joint operation with government authorities seized a record $13.6 million worth of counterfeit NFL merchandise this season.
Details after the jump…

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Via Darren Rovell at ESPN:

The NFL, in cooperation with government authorities, announced on Thursday that it had seized a record $13.6 million worth of  counterfeit NFL merchandise this season in a nationwide enforcement effort called “Operation Red Zone.”

That total included a bust in Warwick, R.I., in September, when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations, with an assist from U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, seized 226 boxes containing 4,016 counterfeit jerseys. It also includes 160,000 Super Bowl-related pieces of memorabilia discovered in recent days.

“Organized criminals are preying on that excitement, ripping consumers off with counterfeit merchandise and stealing from the American businesses who have worked hard to build a trusted brand,” said ICE director John Morton, in a statement. “The sale of counterfeit jerseys and other sports items undermines the legitimate economy, takes jobs away from Americans, and fuels crime overseas. No good comes of counterfeiting American products — whether NFL jerseys, airbags, or pharmaceuticals — and we must go after the criminals behind it.”

All this is just the tip of the iceberg, as an “Outside The Lines” investigation that will air Sunday has discovered. In the past couple of years, stopping counterfeiting has gotten more challenging as more websites, mostly coming out of China, have gone directly to the consumer. It is only a crime to sell counterfeit gear, not to buy it.

Counterfeiters have also done more business as the price of jerseys has risen. A knockoff of a stitched official Nike jersey that retails for $135 sells on these sites for as little as $20 and often includes free air shipping from Asia that allows a consumer to have the package in eight to 10 days. Nike is in the first year of supplying jerseys to the NFL. Counterfeiters also offer variations of products that licensees don’t, such as camouflage jerseys with team logos on them.

 

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