“Collingwood vendors accused of selling $500K in counterfeit goods”

Collingwood vendors accused of selling $500K in counterfeit goods

Posted: 17 Nov 2010 11:14 AM PST

HOWELL — Five New Yorkers and an Edison man were arrested as part of a nearly two-month probe by township police and a private investigations firm that officials said found more than $500,000 worth of counterfeit goods for sale at the Collingwood Auction.

Township police arrested vendors Dan Quingang, 35, Xiaowei He, 36, Xianlian Yang, 44, all of Queens, Oumar Diaby, 46, of the Bronx, 46, Mohamed L. Traore, of New York City, and Zhenjing Ding, 61, of Edison, on charges of selling the knockoff products, detectives said.

"It is a major problem that is running rampant out there," said Stuard Drobny, president of Stumar Investigations, based in Norristown, Pa.

The company was contacted by several retail manufacturers reporting counterfeit products were being sold at the flea market, Drobny said.

"Our team of investigators did a walk-through of the place, made several buys and we called in Howell police after we identified all the locations," Drobny explained.

Police confiscated more than 5,000 counterfeit designer handbags, wallets, scarves, hats, jewelry, sunglasses and footwear, valued at more than $500,000 and said to be from such brand names as Oakley, Gucci, Coach, Dooney & Bourke, Chanel, Juicy Couture, Tiffany & Co., Uggs and Nike, Drobny said.

The estimated value of such items, if they were not counterfeit, was placed at several million dollars, Drobny added.

Quingang, He, Yang, Traore and Ding were each charged with second-degree trademark counterfeiting, after they were each found with more than 1,000 counterfeit items, or items totaling more that $15,000 in value.

Diaby was charged with third-degree trademark counterfeiting after he was found with somewhere between 100 and 1,000 items with a total value under $15,000.

All were released on criminal summonses and are expected to appear in court on Dec. 2.

A call to the auction, located at Routes 33 and 34, was not immediately returned Wednesday.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.