During the biggest online shopping day of the year with consumers estimated to spend $1.5 billion, federal officials teamed up with European law enforcement agencies to shut down over 130 websites hawking illegal counterfeit items on the internet.
Project Cyber Monday 3 marks the third year in a row that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has shut down the websites selling counterfeit goods.
"Everything from Ergobaby carriers to New Era hats, Nike sneakers, Tiffany jewelry, Oakley sunglasses and NFL jerseys, just to name a few. Even counterfeit Adobe software was for sale," ICE Director John Morton said during a conference call with reporters.
ICE's The National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and Homeland Security Investigations partnered with EUROPOL, the European Union's law enforcement agency, to take down the 101 websites on U.S. internet servers and 31 websites with European domain names.
"Counterfeit Hermes purses, Christian Louboutin shoes and various Nike apparel, all of it fake, all of it substandard," Morton said about the quality of the knock-off items.
According to figures from the Commerce Department intellectual property (IP) theft costs U.S. industries an estimated $200 billion to $250 billion annually.
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