Author and Lecturer
This is a really good video taken at Radio City Music Hall on 12/25/2016. Selling counterfeit apparel on the streets is always brisk at Christmas time. Fakes sold on the streets costs NYC upwards of $1 billion a year. A few years ago NYC proposed fining consumers who were caught buying fakes on the street (see video below). The law was never passed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVp-J6Re7Lc
The results of Operation Action against Counterfeit and Illicit Medicines (ACIM) were reviewed in January, 2017 in Paris by the International Institute of Research Against Counterfeit Medicines (IRACM) and the World Customs Organization (WCO). By any accounts, ACIM was a huge success and resulted in record seizures of 113 million illicit and dangerous pharmaceutical products, all of which took place during a two-week period in September, 2016.
The problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in the developing countries is huge. ACIM mobilized customs administrations in 16 African countries to inspect and identify pharmaceuticals and drugs posing a dangerous threat to the local populations in 16 African countries to inspect simultaneously, in the main ports on the continent, cargoes identified as likely to contain illicit or counterfeit pharmaceutical products. 243 containers were inspected, of which 150 contained fakes. Most treatments were: antimalarial drugs, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, and analgesics, as well as gastro-intestinal medicines. Also seized were 13 million health supplements and 5,000 medical devices. The main countries of origin were China and India.