Monthly Archives: July 2021

COUNTERFEIT CHILDREN’S CAR SEATS



The first discovery of a fake car seat was in 2019 at St. Luke’s Pediatric Education and Prevention Program in Idaho by a car seat technician helping the parents of a newborn baby leave the hospital. She noticed that appropriate safety labels were missing and the moving parts were not moving correctly. She also noticed the car seat was missing its chest clip. The family said the car seat was part of a three-part travel system branded as “SafePlus,” a name similar to a product line of a popular European brand. The car seat had been given to them as a gift and ordered through Amazon.

Since then, numerous counterfeit children’s car seats have been discovered, most sold online.

“Unfortunately, the $350 counterfeit seat that parent purchased likely wouldn’t do much in the event of even a minor accident,” says Yoav Mazar, founder of Doona, the world’s first complete and fully integrated travel system, allowing parents to move from car seat to stroller in seconds. The Doona retails for about $550.

Mazar’s team has tested multiple counterfeit versions of the Doona in the same lab they use to test the real thing. “The results were horrific,” according to Mazar. The dupes failed flammability tests, tested positive for dangerous chemicals in the textiles, and in the crash test the dummy babies fell right out of the car seats.

“Those making the fake car seats use materials that appear to be similar to those used on the real thing but aren’t as strong or fire-retardant as the authentic version. This results in expensive dupes that offer little actual protection to babies,” said Mazar.

OPERATION TEAM PLAYER

Operation Team Player is an ongoing operation that begins after every Super Bowl and runs through the next one targeting international shipments of counterfeit sports merchandise entering the United States.

The Operation is run by the Home Land Security-led National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), which coordinates its investigations with several law enforcement agencies.

At a June 30th , press conference held in Tampa, Florida, representatives from Homeland Security Investigations (HIS), the National Football League (NFL), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that in the past year169,000 counterfeit sports-related items worth $45 million had been seized under Operation Team Player.

14th OPERATION PANGEA

According to the Organization for Economic Trade and Development, counterfeit trade in pharmaceuticals is a growing problem currently worth $4.4 billion. Interpol has been organizing a global operation code-named Pangea to combat the problem.

Interpol’s 14th Operation Pangea concluded in late June with impressive results:

113,OO websites were taken down in 92 participating countries;

22 people arrested

710,000 packages checked;

500,000 fake surgical masks seized in Italy

23 million fake devices of which more than half were counterfeit Covid testing kits

LAWSUIT FILED FOR DEATH OF LA PITCHER TYLER SKAGGS

The family of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs who died from a drug overdose in 2019 have recently filed two law suits against the team, the owner’s business and two former employees alleging wrongful death due to negligence and negligent hiring and supervision.

Skaggs ingested a lethal combination of opiods that included a counterfeit pill that contained fentanyl and not oxycodone and alcohol before choking on his own vomit.

“Skaggs likely believed he was taking just oxycodone and not a deadly combination with fentanyl,” the prosecutor has said.

(2) Former Angels employee charged in Tyler Skaggs’ fatal fentanyl overdose at North Texas hotel – YouTube

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