Su Ming Ling, Smuggling Counterfeit Apparel, New York 2017

Former Queens, New York, resident Su Ming Ling was arrested last night in California as he attempted to board a flight from San Francisco to Taiwan for his participation in a sophisticated scheme to import approximately 200 shipping containers of counterfeit brand-name apparel from the People’s Republic of China.

Ling made his initial appearance today at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse in San Francisco, California, before United States Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim. Ling was ordered detained pending a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday, September 6, 2017.

The arrest was announced by Bridget M. Rohde, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Debra Parker, Acting Special-Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) Newark Division, and Leon Hayward, Acting Director, New York Field Office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“Using a combination of internet savvy and old-fashioned counterfeit distribution techniques, defendant Ling perpetrated a lucrative counterfeiting scheme involving fake name-brand items,” stated Acting United States Attorney Rohde. “This Office, together with our law enforcement partners, remains committed to protecting the intellectual property of U.S. brands, on which the economic integrity of U.S. markets depend.”

According to the complaint unsealed today, between May 2013 and January 2017, Ling used aliases to register and create numerous Internet domain names and email addresses that resembled the Internet domain names of real U.S. businesses.

The defendant then used the fraudulently obtained email addresses to pose as a representative of the real businesses, and hired CBP-licensed customs brokers for file customs entry forms on behalf of the businesses whose identities he had stolen. Ling provided those customs brokers with falsified shipping documents for numerous shipments of counterfeit brand-name apparel that misrepresented the true contents of the shipping containers.

Working with co-conspirators, Ling then arranged for the shipping containers of counterfeit goods to be distributed to, among other places, warehouses and storage facilities in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, and in New Jersey. The shipping containers inspected by HSI and CBP were found to contain purported brand-name merchandise including purported Nike brand sneakers, UGG brand boots, National Football League-brand athletic jerseys, and True Religion brand jeans which CBP import specialists later determined to be counterfeit.

Defendant: Su Ming Ling, Criminal Charges: Smuggling and conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods, City and State: Queens, New York, Arrest Date: September 5, 2017, Sentence: Pending detention hearing scheduled for September 6, 2017, Dollar Amount: Millions of dollars worth of counterfeit brand name apparel from China.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-queens-ny-resident-arrested-smuggling-millions-dollars-worth-counterfeit-brand