A tourist's trip to New York City isn't complete without a walk down Canal Street, Chinatown merchants hawking a rainbow of wares. Ray-Ban sunglasses, Louis Vuitton handbags, Rolex watches – all for less than you'll pay for lunch that day. It's obvious, right? It's all fake stuff.

Counterfeiting and knock-off products are not just risks for naive tourists. It also includes batteries that go into Humvees or military aircraft, or fake chips bound for nuclear circuit boards. As the U.S. outsources more of its manufacturing industry, the problem becomes graver.

To tackle the problem, National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, led by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), is targeting perpetrators of counterfeit sales. It's a mission that relies heavily on cross-agency coordination – and already is proving fruitful.

IPRC Director Bruce Foucart spoke with senior staff writer Amber Corrin about his organization's triumphs, challenges – and trials, the kind resulting in jail time.

We live in a world where anything and everything is counterfeited — iPhones, sports gear, software, pharmaceuticals, computer parts, you name it. You have a huge job trying to catch the people selling and importing this stuff to the U.S., some of it making its way into critical supply chains. How does it work?

There's a lot of coordination. Say we get information about a shipment coming into LA. We would ensure that our Los Angeles personnel, either in [Customs and Border Protection] or the FBI, would have access to that information before the shipment came in. At headquarters, our role is to support the field, whereas the agents in the field are the ones conducting the investigations and doing the prosecutions.

Don't Miss CYBERCON 2015, a cybersecurity conference coming Nov. 18, featuring DISA Director Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn. Get details here

We also have Operation Chain Reaction. In 2011 Congress passed an act that makes it illegal for counterfeits to be sold into the DoD supply chain. So people who are knowingly selling counterfeit parts to DoD can be prosecuted; it's codified. So that's a violation, in addition to the outright counterfeiting.

We started this operation looking at counterfeits, what the military was purchasing and were there counterfeits proliferating within the military. The answer was yes. We've seen counterfeit boots, counterfeit knapsacks. What we're working now, which we think is probably one of the most significant, relates to the chips that go into circuit boards. As our fleet of military transportation ages, it needs [replacement] parts. So more than likely, they're going to have to go to a second-hand manufacturer or a manufacturer that's been contracted out. And oftentimes, what we see is that outsourcing is in China. To keep the stuff running, they have to purchase these items from these vendors who have the potential to sell counterfeit goods.

Have you caught anyone so far?

Yes. There was an individual who was procuring microchips that went into circuit boards that went into building nuclear subs in New London, Connecticut. So he's getting sentenced, he's looking at time, absolutely. That's one of our more significant cases. We had another case in Los Angeles in which an individual was selling counterfeit batteries to the military. Both he, and ...I don't know if it was his wife or family member, but I believe she just got six months' house detention. Those batteries were going to the military to use and some of them blow up, some of them don't work. That's the unfortunate part.

What are some of the toughest parts of your mission?

One challenge is ensuring that the field properly not only investigates the case, but properly works with our prosecutors, the U.S. Attorney's Offices in the field, to insure that's a concerted effort going forward. We want to make sure we get over those hurdles, and we do have a section within the Department of Justice that helps us here, the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.

Another challenge would be that DoD just is such a large procurement piece of the government. They procure and purchase at just such a high volume all the time, and so there's a lot of data to analyze and a lot of information to examine and to share. So, we have to focus on certain areas that could potentially harm the troops. Again, it's [about] prioritizing.

The IPR Center has launched a training program aimed at acquisition personnel to boost awareness, increase engagement and sharpen vigilance. What is the goal there?

Several years back, [ICE] noticed that we had purchased counterfeit items. It's too easy as a government entity. So, what we did was we created internally, within ICE, a procurement training process in which all purchase card holders had to take this training … and based on the feedback from the people that were taking the training, we posted it on our website. We did that for anyone, including other government entities; We figured state and local municipalities would utilize it. But, it's also there for private industry.

Don't Miss CYBERCON 2015, a cybersecurity conference coming Nov. 18, featuring DISA Director Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn. Get details here

Share:
In Other News
Load More