Bill Ryan Participates in Thanksgiving Anti-Counterfeiting Bust
The shoppers inside a Wantagh warehouse store were expecting bargains on Louis Vuitton handbags and Burberry trench coats, but instead were greeted by a swarm of Nassau cops shouting: “Put your hands over your head!”
A Thanksgiving night police raid of the “Lavish Creations” store resulted in the arrest of three people accused of selling counterfeit luxury goods imported from China — bearing popular brand names including Ugg and Hermes — online and at the Wantagh location, Nassau police said.
Police executed a search warrant for the business at 1220 Wantagh Ave. and the Levittown home of one of the alleged counterfeiters and found an estimated $1 million in fake goods, a few thousand dollars in cash and a laptop computer believed to be used in the operation, said Det. Sgt. Patrick Ryder, commanding officer of Nassau’s intelligence unit, which conducted the raid. Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter also attended. Police believe the business, which was selling all types of clothing, was operating for about two years and accepted cash and credit cards, Ryder said.
The raid, dubbed “Operation Black Thursday,” followed a months long investigation during which an undercover Nassau police detective bought goods three times from the warehouse store that used to house a doctor’s office — buys that officers secretly recorded, police said. The counterfeiters advertised the store’s intermittent hours on websites.
Counterfeiting is big business. The number of seizures by U.S. authorities of counterfeit and pirated items increased almost 7 percent in fiscal year 2013 over the previous year, with the goods valued at $1.74 billion, according to a federal report this year. Federal authorities reported making about 66 seizures daily, with an average value of $71,500 — with the majority of the goods coming from China.
Nassau police were first tipped to the Wantagh operation when U.S. Customs and Border Protection intercepted two shipments of merchandise addressed to Ligotti’s Levittown home on Swing Lane earlier this year at an international shipping port in Long Beach, California.
William P. Ryan, a Manhattan-based investigator who works for well-known brands to root out counterfeiters and was also alerted, began investigating and was able to link the shipments to the Wantagh site. He shared the information with Nassau police.
Ryan, a retired NYPD detective, said many consumers think it’s harmless to buy counterfeit goods. “It’s a crime,” Ryan said. “It saps millions of dollars out of the economy, supports organized crime, terrorism and child labor.”
Thursday night’s raid followed a finely tuned script: The undercover detective, who was wearing a wire, entered the store five minutes past the 10 p.m. opening and bought a Louis Vuitton-branded purse for $230 using cash marked so police could later identify it.
Outside in unmarked cars, detectives listened in real time. As the undercover finished checking out, he told the clerk, “Merry Christmas,” the code words telling those waiting the raid was on.