Look at them all: iPods and iPhones of every colour and every generation. It’s a king’s ransom of iProducts – except every single one of them is a fake.
The Los Angeles Port Police seized the counterfeit goods from several downtown warehouses as part of a massive two-month long bust. What they found, according to the Los Angeles Times:
Counterfeit products with an estimated street value of more than $US1.4 million; stolen electronics, toys and blankets worth about $US2.5 million; and bank account receipts that indicate the operation generated more than $US7 million in profits.
That’s a lot of bad Apples.
Also intriguing? How the fakes were going to be used. Brothers-in-crime Bahram and Edward Zahab had imported them as parts to be reassembled, then labelled and sold like the real thing. And even more interesting is the preponderance of previous generation iPods in the cache. One would assume that they’re easier to sell at cut-rate prices, and harder to compare to their legitimate (and outmoded) counterparts.
So be careful out there, people buying three year old iPods and PSPs from shady street vendors. Both because it’s probably fake and busted, and because who’d be caught dead toting an iPod Mini these days? [LA Times]