From: 89.3 KPCC Southern California Public Radio
Out of the all the imported goods that come into the U.S., 43 percent of it goes through the Port of Los Angeles.
Everyday, shipments of electronics, cars, produce, clothing, and more arrive here from overseas bound for stores and homes across the country. But every now and then, not all is what it appears to be, and that beautiful Chanel handbag or those Beats by Dr Dre headphones?
A cheap copycat.
That’s when you need David Dodge, chief officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He’s one of the department’s “counterfeit detectives” who oversees the process to scan for fake goods, illegally imported items, invasive plants and insects from abroad, and more.
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Have you ever looked at a container and thought, ‘What were they thinking?'”
“One example of that is, we had a 40-foot container of counterfeit cigarettes, camouflaged by about two or three rows of toy cars. So we open up the tail and it looks like toy cars. We pull the box down, open up the box of toy cars, and the toy cars themselves had counterfeit trademarks on them. They hid a container full of fake counterfeit products behind fake counterfeit products. We got a chuckle out of that one.”
